Robert Bowling of Call of Duty 4 developer Infinity Ward has fired a broadside at Noah Heller, Activision’s senior producer on Call of Duty: World at War, saying he’s sick of Heller’s constant references to Call of Duty 4 in preview for World at War.
In an entry on his personal blog, Bowling wrote, “If I see one more Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Google alert come through my inbox, that ends up being a COD:WaW article that is only showing up because YOU referenced Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare more times than you mention World at War…”
Referring to a recent interview with Heller on CVG in which he claimed that bolt action rifles might take “three or four shots” to kill someone in previous games in the series, Bowling wrote, “WTF are you talking about?! ‘In previous Call of Dutys blah blah blah.’ First of all, you didn’t work on ‘previous Call of Dutys,’ so don’t talk as if you’re down with how/why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely f*cking wrong. Bolt action rifles are one-hit kills in every Call of Duty we (Infinity Ward) made!!”
“Promote YOUR game,” he continued. “Don’t compare it to another game, or reference what OTHER games did in the past, pitch YOUR game. I mean, you have lots of cool things you could talk about…”
“Can you guys please stop interviewing this guy?” he wrote, apparently addressing videogame journalists directly. “Talk to someone who actually works on the dev team at Treyarch and knows what the f*ck they’re talking about. Not Senior Super Douche Noah Heller – who apparently has never played the game and doesn’t even work at the developer.”
Ironically, Bowling is Infinity Ward’s community relations manager.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of the top-selling games in 2008, with over ten million copies sold across all platforms. Treyarch’s Call of Duty: World at War, which launches in North America on November 11, returns the franchise to the Second World War, while Infinity Ward is currently at work on Call of Duty 6. The game is currently targeting a 2009 release, but no other details have been revealed.
UPDATE: This isn’t the first time Noah Heller has been called out by a Call of Duty studio – but the first time it happened, it was actually Treyarch that took issue with him.
Back in the summer, Heller said that Gearbox Software, developer of competing World War Two game Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway, “wasn’t even in the same league” as Treyarch and Activision. “We don’t even think about them. They’re not even a game we even think about when we’re playing,” he said. “We want to look at the games that do great storytelling. We don’t want to look at someone who’s just making a crappy war game.”
Heller’s ill-considered comments earned an immediate response from Treyarch, which apologized unreservedly for the cheap shot. “We want to let everyone know that we found those remarks offensive, and they do not in any way represent the feelings of any developer at this studio or at Activision,” Treyarch Community Manager “JD” wrote in a message on the Xbox forums. “We hold all of our peers in the development community in the highest regard. We have nothing but respect for the guys and gals at Gearbox.”
