Summary
- A canceled Call of Duty: Zombies game, codenamed "Project Zed," was scrapped before production after plans to create a Mad Max-inspired standalone game.
- Lead developer Michael Gummelt shared details about the canceled game, including a 4-player co-op mode set in a post-apocalyptic world fighting zombies.
- The game was supposed to have character customization, seasonal content updates, and inspiration from Gummelt's previous work on Call of Duty Online.
The popular Zombies mode in Call of Duty was once set to transition into a Mad Max-like standalone game before these plans finally got scrapped. Recently, a former Call of Duty developer revealed more information about this canceled live-service game, codenamed "Project Zed."
Back in January, news broke out about a canned Call of Duty: Zombies game that was in development between 2011 and 2012, courtesy of the LinkedIn profile of Michael Gummelt, an alumnus of Call of Duty developer Raven Software. While there was limited information revealed back then, Gummelt has now divulged a bunch of new details about the canceled Zombies game, giving fans a clearer idea.
In an interview with Glitching Queen, ex-Raven Software lead Michael Gummelt spoke in detail about the standalone Call of Duty: Zombies game which was axed, drawing parallels between its post-apocalyptic theme and that of Mad Max. The veteran developer revealed that the 4-player co-op game would initially put players in a Mad Max-like gladiator arena where they would fight zombies across multiple rounds and then escape into the open world. Clearing off waves of undead enemies across the open world map would allow players to unlock rewards as they set forth to free other zombie-infested zones and rescue the survivors. About his team's approach to the game, he added that they wanted to "go broad" and "have fun with it" while keeping the same style as previous CoD entries.
Moving on, Gummelt shared that Call of Duty: Zombies was supposed to have character creation right at the beginning and that players could continue customizing their character over the course of the game through ways such as in-game purchases. He also said that, like any other live-service game, this one was also expected to have different seasons sporting distinct themes, similar to the seasonal content strategy in the new Call of Duty games.
The lead developer stated that much of Call of Duty: Zombies was based on his prototypes from the time he spent working on Call of Duty Online, a China-only game that was shut down in 2021. The China-exclusive online title had a similar mode where players would face off against cyborgs instead of zombies, a reasonable portion of which had inspired Gummelt's ideas for the canceled Zombies standalone project.
Call of Duty: Zombies Development Was Shut Down Early On
Talking about the game's status before being canned, Gummelt said that his team "never actually got far enough to actually start making that," clarifying that only the design docs had been prepared for Call of Duty: Zombies and talks with Activision were still going on for the final go-ahead. However, the thumbs-up from Activision never truly arrived after another CoD developer Treyarch decided to retain the Zombies part of the IP as one of the modes in the game. While there is no standalone Zombies game in the franchise right now, Modern Warfare 3's Zombies mode does feature the open-world aspect that the canceled game would also have had.
