With the departure of Vince Zampella and Jason West from Infinity Ward, most knew that something was up concerning the future of the Call of Duty franchise. Sledgehammer Games, which is an internal Activision studio, has assumed lead control of the Call of Duty franchise going forward.

Sledgehammer Games, led by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey (who are known as former members of Visceral Games, which produced Dead Space) will be leading the team responsible for the 2011 Call of Duty release. Developer Treyarch, who will be releasing the next Call of Duty title this year, appears to continue as the co-developer of the series in order to maintain a yearly release for the franchise.

With this news, the future of Infinity Ward seems very likely in question. Beyond the fact that two map packs for downloadable content were still in the works at Infinity Ward, no one seems to know what the future fate will be for the studio. With the departure of Zampella and West, Infinity Ward will be led by Steve Pearce, with production to be headed by Steve Ackrich. Both are from Activision Publishing and not Infinity Ward, which could leave doubts to the future of the studio; but it seems that they will still be developing Modern Warfare 3 in the near term.

The decision to move in this direction is being driven by Activision’s desire to move Call of Duty into its own business unit and expand the banding and content over multiple type of gaming genres. The effect is said to be an attempt to duplicate the success that Blizzard has had with the World of Warcraft franchise.

The Call of Duty community seems to be in a state of shock over the announcements, with many commenting that the decision to effectively cut out Infinity Ward will lead to the end of the franchise. Others seem to think that the commercialization of the franchise will mean the end of innovation and keeping the game true to its roots. While this all remains to be seen, we think the announcement of Zampella and West’s departure will have far reaching ramifications that perhaps Activision is not anticipating with the fans and players of the game; and attempting to move the franchise in such a public display of commercialization could backfire.