Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer has seemingly been working on an action RPG, but I'd be shocked if it's still alive

All Sledgehammer Games has known in its 16-year existence is Call of Duty. From leading the charge as the main developer on games like Advanced Warfare, Vanguard, and 2023's Modern Warfare 3, to assisting other Activision studios on several other CoD titles, FPS games are its bread and butter. However, it appears that another, surprising project has been in the works at Sledgehammer. While never officially announced, LinkedIn sleuths have spotted a reference to an "action RPG" in development at the California-based studio - however, it's not clear if it's still being worked on, or if it's fallen by the wayside.

Sledgehammer often feels like the least appreciated of Activision's flagship CoD studios. Infinity Ward kickstarted Call of Duty's mainstream dominance with the Modern Warfare series. Treyarch gets the plaudits for creating Zombies and delivering memorable moments in the Black Ops series. Raven Software has a history with FPS games that spans four decades, and now holds the keys to Call of Duty Warzone. I feel like Sledgehammer, despite its involvement with so many great CoDs over the years, often gets overlooked.

Even though it spearheaded the excellent, jet pack-infused Advanced Warfare and the solid WW2, it was recently dealt a dud hand by having to take the lead on Modern Warfare 3 - a game that was always set up to, essentially, be a glorified expansion of Infinity Ward's middling Modern Warfare 2 from the year prior. It's now best remembered for having probably the worst CoD campaign of all time.

Despite that, Call of Duty will undoubtedly remain Sledgehammer's core focus in the future - even in an underwhelming year, a new CoD is still reliably one of the best-selling games. But it seems that Sledgehammer had its eyes on something different, an action RPG.

As spotted by Reddit user 'OkEconomy2800,' former Sledgehammer creative director Ben Wanat mentions the project in his LinkedIn profile's experience section. Wanat, who has previously held similar roles working on the Dead Space series and Tomb Raider games, left Sledgehammer last year after a six-year stint at the studio. However, while his LinkedIn page does mention that he assisted on the creative direction of Call of Duty Vanguard's campaign components, his main focus appears to have been on establishing this RPG project.

"Creative director for unannounced action RPG," Wanat's profile reads. His duties included "Franchise planning, pitching, hiring, planning," "directing prototypes," world and location layouts, creating concept art and assets for "cultures, environments, [and] characters," and writing "lore books for world, cultures, languages."

Now, to me, 'action RPG' screams a Diablo or Path of Exile-esque experience, but the definition stretches a lot more widely these days to encompass any role-playing game with deep combat systems. So it's hard to say exactly what kind of project this is. However, with a focus on lore books that span different cultures and languages, it sounds like an incredibly deep world is being crafted here.

As to whether this project is still in development, that's anyone's guess at the moment. With Wanat having left to start his own studio, the CoD series' consistently high content expectations and short timelines, and Activision's overlords at Microsoft recently canceling plenty of first and third-party projects due to budget cuts, I struggle to see a world where Sledgehammer is still working on this. I do also wonder, given Activision's penchant for studios assisting each other in development, if Wanat's work has anything to do with the currently nameless, narrative-driven IP in development at Elsewhere Entertainment, a new studio Activision formed in Poland in 2024.

One reason to make me hopeful it's still in the works is that Wanat seems to have been largely focused on this for a good chunk of his tenure at Sledgehammer. Vanguard launched in November 2021, meaning his work on that game should've wrapped around that time. His profile makes no mention of him having majorly contributed to Modern Warfare 3 or any other Call of Duty projects either, so up until his departure in August 2025, this RPG may have been his main project. That's a good amount of time to be crafting a new universe and setting up a team to make it a reality. However, I'm still skeptical about it ever seeing the light of day.