It’s not Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 that hit the internet (although this year’s episode didn’t escape without a major leak, we won’t deny that), but a slightly older episode that might still be somewhat relevant.

We’re talking about Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which would be the 2014 episode. It was created by Sledgehammer Games and released by Activision for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. (This shows that even though the Nintendo Wii U was released in the fall of 2012, no port was developed for it; the platform, which offered a unique controller with a Game Pad but didn’t really take advantage of it, quickly fell by the wayside for third-party developers…)

The prototype (available for download on Archive.org!) is dated May 3, 2013 and runs on Xbox 360. The main title screen only shows Call of Duty: Phantom because the game was copied from an early version of the 2013 episode, Call of Duty: Ghosts. Many things from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare parts two and three were taken from the prototype developed under the code name Blacksmith, which was presumably designed as a vertical slice. This term refers to the design presented to publishers and investors.

We can also think of the prototype as a vertical slice because it has a single track (a year and a half before the game’s release, mind you!), Fusion, which was called Fission in the final game. Considering that this one track is the only one in the prototype, and it’s also pretty well developed, it seems like a pretty good concept considering how far away it was from the Fall 2014 release.

The prototype launch also includes a patched executable that removes the whitelist (authorization) check at launch. So at least we can see how Sledgehammer approached the development of their first Call of Duty.

Source: Reddit, Archive.org, Krakenfiles