10 Things We Learned At The Call Of Duty XP Sledgehammer Panel

Between Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered's multiplayer unveiling, a closer look at "Zombies in Spaceland," and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 having its championship tournament over the weekend, Sledgehammer, the third lead developer of the series, could keep a low profile as they worked on their next game. Instead, they decided to chronicle their history during their panel, "Sledgehammer: The Seven Year Journey." Here are 10 things we learned about the company, their games, and Kevin Spacey during the panel.

Making Modern Warfare 3 was called to a vote
When the team was approached by Activision about helping Infinity Ward create the final game in the Modern Warfare trilogy, studio co-founders Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey called the project to a vote. The team voted overwhelmingly in favor of helping develop the game.

The Co-founders had a moment of doubt when they first left Visceral
"I remember the first day, sitting in my old car, parked out side of the gym which was the office," said Schofield. “I was thinking, 'what did we do?'”

Advanced Warfare had an unwritten rule of believeabiltiy
Although much of the technology in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has a far-off feel to it, Sledgehammer wanted to make sure every piece of technology had some sort of current working theory attached to it. We visited [the NASA] JPL, MIT, The human genome project. Whatever we wanted [in the game] we wanted it to fit with reality,” said Schofield.

The motion capture for Advanced Warfare was done on the same set as Avatar 2
Sledgehammer was a little starstruck to learn they were filming on the same set as a the sequel to a film which inspired much of their own technology.

To show off their next-gen tech, Sledgehammer created a demo called "The Fourth Wall"
The demo shows a team of what looks to be special forces infiltrating a room before one of them turns to the camera and calls attention to all the new facial technology in the game's engine, including the ability to dilate pupils on the fly.

The origin of the name Sledgehammer
"We want to make an impact on the software, on the game, on the fans," said Condrey. "We're also about as subtle as a sledgehammer," said Schofield.

They asked someone who inspects the Golden Gate Bridge how to blow it up
As part of their research for Advanced Warfare, Sledgehammer asked them what it would take to destroy the bridge. "And he told 'put bombs here, here, and here.'" said Schofield.

Kevin Spacey released an album
One night during the development of Advanced Warfare Spacey, Schofield, and Condrey went out for drinks. While they were they were there, they did karaoke of songs from Spacey's 2004 album, Beyond the Sea. The fact that Spacey released an album has been public knowledge for years, but we're guessing most everyone reading this article just found out about it.

Activision has a company-wide Veterans Day
As part of the company's efforts to help veterans in need (which includes the Call of Duty Endowment), every year the company's employees take a day to volunteer at a veterans home.

Sledgehammer is committed to diversity
When asked what inspired the Ilona, one of the first prominent women in the series, take part as a heroine, Schofield replied, "We have a commitment to creating an inclusive environment, and that includes women in the military. We wanted to represent that in [Advanced Warfare]. It's important to our studio culture." Expanding his view, Schofield commented that he could see the military eventually comprising of 50 percent men and women. "The future [of the military] is easy to see, and it's really important [to us] that we reach out to everybody."