Activision – Call of Duty: Roman Wars ‘Was Not Seriously Considered’

Developer Vicarious Visions offered Activision a prototype involving a Call of Duty game set in the Ancient Rome. Polemus said the players will be facing the Germans and Germanic Tribes.

A single level was created and based on the Battle of Alesia. Players would have had the chance to be one of the soldiers during the time of Julius Caesar, possibly even answering to him.

To date, only a handful of people have seen a sliver of footage of the game’s pitch presentation, but GamesRadar has uncovered more info and footage of the lost Call of Duty title that never was. Catapults could be used as another method of attack, and ridable elephants were featured as the game’s “tank” equivalent. “All done in the Unreal Engine for rapid prototyping”.

Anonymous sources speaking to GamesRadar recalled that the publisher, which purchased the studio in 2005, began accepting pitches for a new direction in which to take the first-person shooter franchise in 2008. This is according to a report from Games Radar in which they managed to speak to some people who were involved in the game.

The usual uplifting commands from the commander, the typical scripted set pieces, and even the multi-character narrative resembles the Call of Duty series, despite the obvious differences. The developers were working on a Call of Duty game that would have taken us away from its future themes and thrown us back in time.

Instead of making Roman Wars a reality, Activision greenlit what would eventually become Advanced Warfare, one of the most awful CoD games ever made (at least from its campaign, due to Sledgehammer Games’ inept skillset). “That launch title would have been a lot bigger and a lot more well received”.