When it was revealed that Sledgehammer Games were working on a third-person action adventure entry under the Call of Duty banner, gamers were pretty vocal that it was the wrong direction for the best-selling franchise to take. Curiously however, it isn't the only time Activision have attempted to get a third-person entry off the ground and today we've got all the info on what it looked like, what it was meant to be and why it was cancelled.

The Verge has posted a complete rundown on the unknown cancelled spin-off, titled Call of Duty: Devil's Brigade. With work commencing on the project five months before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the title was to follow the adventures of the real life Devil's Brigade, a band of the very best American and Canadian Soldiers who fought in Italy during WWII.

The concept was in response to Activision's desires to expand the franchise into the third-person action adventure genre, coupled with gamer skepticism about the franchise's shift into a modern day setting.

The project, codenamed 'Codaa' for "Call of Duty Action Adventure", was spearheaded by a band of former EA developers who called themselves Underground Development.

A 12 to 15 minute "vertical slice" of the game's campaign was developed to illustrate the feel of the game to Activision executives. Creative director for the project, Jason VandenBerghe, explained the basis of the 'slice' as follows:

"There was a German general who was in charge of holding Rome until the American and European forces got there. They never intended to hold Rome [permanently]. All they were going to do was blow up the bridges, and then pull back. The Devil's Brigade was sent in first to secure those bridges - to make sure they weren't blown up [by the Germans] [...]And that was the inspiration for the mission. [The stage] was a piece of ground coming out of a sewer onto a low beach next to the Tiber River underneath one of the bridges. Using the squad controls and vaulting skills, the player would sneakily secure bridges and set explosive points, ultimately clearing a path for the massive American military."

According to The Verge, the "pace was slower and the strategy more calculated than in other Call of Duty games", with the player utilising stealth kills, squad commands and constructing bridges. Not all was so slow-paced however, and according to Lead Designer Kyle Brink, the game was going to include parkour-style moves. "Special Forces guys do lots of crazy athletic stuff that goes far beyond the run/duck/shoot stuff you saw in shooters of that era," he explained.

The team chose to bypass the cinematic moments and set-pieces the series was moving towards within the 'vertical slice'. Instead they tried to capture the feel of the game and show just what the team was capable of within the demonstration build. Those moments were definitely going to make their way in the final build VandeBerghe clarified however, with the game opening with the assault on Monte La Difensa.

"[The Devil's Brigade's] first action was to scale a 1,500 foot cliff at night in the rain, and flank the Germans from behind in their mountain retreat. First thing! You're up on ropes. And there's lightning. You look down, and the entire brigade — a thousand men, they pulled a thousand men up that cliff."

Unfortunately for the development team, despite receiving the go ahead, the title became "lost in the shuffle" following Activision's merger with Vivendi Games and a "confluence of unrelated bad things". Other factors included the high costs associated with development in San Francisco, and the risks associated with such an untested concept and development team.

According to Brink, the cancellation was a sad victim of the merger as the company attempted to tidy up its balance sheets:

"Here's what happened: We were ready for our final green light just as the merger with Vivendi/Blizzard was announced. As is normal in a merger, you do everything you can to clean up your balance sheet. A studio that isn't in full production on a title with major revenue attached to it, which is about to ask for tens of millions in development dollars, is a great candidate for closure at that point. Was this also a way to keep IW happy after they had just produced Modern Warfare and made a hojillion dollars? Perhaps, but nobody ever put it to us that way."

The game was officially cancelled in March 2008 and the team is now disbanded, but not all hope is lost for a third-person entry in the franchise. Nor does it rule out the possibility of a title based on the exploits of the Devil's Brigade.


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