Sledgehammer Games is the studio behind many of the popular Call of Duty games. They first worked on the franchise with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in 2011, and recently helped develop Black Ops 7, which came out in late 2025, alongside studios like Treyarch and Raven Software.
A recent LinkedIn post from someone who works at the studio suggests they were developing a large, story-rich action RPG that hadn’t been publicly announced.
It would be like nothing Sledgehammer has ever created.
Is Sledgehammer Making a New RPG?
For the past few years, Sledgehammer Games has primarily worked as a support studio, meaning they’ve helped other teams develop Call of Duty games. They’ve directly led the development of only two titles recently: Modern Warfare III (2023) and Vanguard (2021).
It’s logical that the studio could develop a new game, but few people expected their next project to be an action role-playing game.
Defining the best action RPGs is tricky, as the genre can include games like Diablo and even Fallout, depending on how you look at it.
Sledgehammer Games was previously working on bringing Call of Duty games to the Nintendo Switch, but that work happened several months ago.
We learned about Sledgehammer Games’ upcoming action RPG from the online profile of Ben Wanat, a former employee. Wanat is currently Creative Director and co-founder of Lurker Entertainment, but he worked at Sledgehammer Games as a Senior Creative Director from 2019 until August 2025.
In the blurb for his role at Sledgehammer Games, he wrote:
Creative director for Unannounced action RPG
- Franchise planning, pitching, hiring, planning
- Directing prototypes, player mechanics for mechanics-rich design
- World layout, location layout
- Concept and asset creation for cultures, environments, characters
- Lore books for world, cultures, languages
(Thanks to Reddit for the spot)
Okay, so it sounds like Wanat helped out with Vanguard, but wasn’t really involved in making Modern Warfare III. That probably meant he had a lot more time to focus on the new action RPG they’re working on – the one we haven’t even heard much about yet. Basically, he was able to put most of his effort into that other game.
From what I understand about the character he plays, this game seems to have a really rich backstory. It sounds like the world is huge and changes based on your choices, with totally new ways to play. Plus, they’ve created completely original cultures, races, and even languages – it’s incredibly immersive!
Grant Taylor-Hill
Grant first fell in love with gaming in 1996 on the Amstrad CPC. Since then, he’s become a skilled gamer across many platforms, with a strong passion for both video games and competitive esports.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
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2026-01-24 17:48