Treyarch Head Mark Gordon Steps Down, to be Succeeded by Kevin Hendrickson and Yale Miller

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Mark Gordon, the head of the video game studio Treyarch – a team within Activision that creates Call of Duty games – is retiring. The studio announced his departure on social media, expressing gratitude for his leadership during the development of numerous titles, starting with Call of Duty 2: Big Red One in 2005.

After 22 years with Treyarch, Gordon has retired, and the studio has appointed Kevin Hendrickson and Yale Miller as its new co-leaders.

Gordon is leaving Treyarch during a relatively calm period, as the studio isn’t developing this year’s Call of Duty game. However, their most recent release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, received negative reviews, and Activision reportedly wasn’t happy with how well it sold.

This year’s new Call of Duty game is Modern Warfare 4, developed by Infinity Ward. It was announced in May and will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. The game launches on October 23rd, but players can start the campaign early on October 16th. Notably, this is the first Call of Duty game since 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts that won’t be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will be set during a war on the Korean peninsula, specifically a North Korean invasion of South Korea. Players will experience the conflict as Private Park, a South Korean soldier, and will encounter Captain Price. Price is described as fighting his own separate battle, as he’s no longer working with Task Force 141. The single-player campaign will take players to various global locations, including Paris, New York City, and Mumbai.

The latest Call of Duty game is focusing heavily on smooth and responsive multiplayer action. Developers at Infinity Ward recently showed off the new movement system, which lets players run, sprint, climb over things, slide, and even stay low to the ground. According to Jacky Reynolds, a lead designer, these movements are designed to feel natural and easy to use. Mark Grigsby, a co-studio head, explained that they’re also addressing feedback from players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with these improvements.

I remember when Modern Warfare 2 came out, a lot of fans, including me, weren’t thrilled with how the movement felt – it felt like they’d taken some things away from us. So, when I heard the team talk about this new project, they said they really wanted to fix that and make some improvements based on the feedback.

The popular game mode DMZ, which lets players enter and extract from a challenging environment, is coming back with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. You can see it in action in a gameplay trailer released earlier this month, and learn more about how the developers are refining this style of game.

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2026-06-16 16:42