According to a recent Official PlayStation Magazine interview with Infinity Ward head man Vince Zampella, Activision didn't initially want the developers to make any sort of "modern warfare" game. Zampella said the team actually had the idea of making a game with a new-world feel, but Activision kept holding them back; this argument apparently goes all the way back to Call of Duty 2. Infinity Ward was "dead set against it being World War II," but Activision insisted on the setting. Furthermore, Zampella said:

"And something I'll add to that, Activision also did not want Modern Warfare. They thought working on a modern game was risky and [thought], 'oh my god you can't do that, it's crazy!' They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time."

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http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/5916.html

GOA.Luke*BK*

Those jerks, hopefully some day IW makes another WW2 shooter, I would love the effort and thought they put into MW to be brought to a WW2 genre, I'm not sold on treyarch, they just regurgitated MW and put new skins on the players.

I don't know I always thought Treyarch did a great job with WaW... singleplayer could have been better but it's always fun to torch the AI with the flamer... But I hope someone makes a newer WW2 shooter with an omaha beach singleplayer mission cause the only game that's done it so far is MOHAA.

Modders created all the MOHAA maps for CoD2, very accurately I must add.

And the thing I find wrong with Treyarch is their map making abilities, they are not balanced, most can be won with a sniper and they have no idea about spawn placements