Infinity Ward in disarray

In what is in danger of becoming a daily ritual at the Activision owned developer Infinity Ward, two more key staff members have walked out on the studio, bringing the total number of departures to 11.

If you include ousted bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella, that number now stands at 13 – well over ten per cent of the developer’s total workforce.

Kotaku reports that the latest faces to turn their back on the company are lead animator Mark Grigsby and lead character animator Paul Messeerly.

The site adds that according to sources close to the studio, morale at Infinity Ward is unsurprisingly low due to a worrying lack of leadership”.

Infinity Ward has previously asserted that ‘morale is high’ at the developer, but the long string of walkouts in the wake of West and Zampella’s formation of new studio Respawn Entertainment is making that all the harder to believe.

In case you’ve lost track of the recent spat of departures, names on the list include Todd Alderman, Francesco Gigliotti, Jon Shiring, Mackey McCandlish, Bruce Ferriz, Steve Fukuda, Zied Reike, Rayme Vinson, and Chris Cherubini.

At what stage the number of departures gets to the point where the Modern Warfare team is decimated to the point that it threatens the very essence of the Modern Warfare brand is a matter of opinion. But it’s undeniable that Activision needs to do all it can to stem the flow as soon as possible.