A long time ago before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision had big plans for the franchise. While they had Infinity Ward and Treyarch working on the first-person shooter aspects of the title, the publisher hired on Sledgehammer Games to create a third-person Call of Duty title. On top of that, there were some rumors of a turn-based Call of Duty title in the works.

While the fate of Sledgehammer’s third-person project is still up in the air as they were taken off of it to help Infinity Ward finish MW3, we now have proof of the turn-based game’s existence and subsequent cancellation. Military shooter fan site MP1st has found footage of the turn-based Call of Duty title.

The game is obviously set during World War II and it sure looks like a turn-based game. The game was being developed by Vicarious Visions, the Activision developer that usually handles the Nintendo Wii ports of its titles. This would have been their first major primary console release in a long time, so it’s too bad the game was cancelled.

It makes you wonder why Activision cancelled the project. It makes most sense that the Call of Duty crowd wouldn’t be interested in a tactical turn-based shooter. Still, it would have been a nice change of pace for the franchise.

Twitter user superannuation was the first to uncover the project. The tweet prior to the leak said that he had been sitting on it for a while.

Game was obviously never released, and briefly a thing around 2009 or so IIRC. Targeted platforms X360/PS3 etc.

— superannuation (@supererogatory) April 19, 2012

Check out the footage and see what could have been:

What do you think of a turn-based Call of Duty title? Do you think it would have been a good side project for the franchise? Let us know in the comments.

[h/t: Reddit]