Infinity Ward community manager Tina Palacios has said there is "no way" the studio will develop Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 in an interview with Videogamer.
"After Modern Warfare 3 ended, we already knew from the beginning that we didn't want to do another one. There was no way we were going to do another one. We wanted to go in a new direction."
Palacios said that Call of Duty: Ghosts offered Infinity Ward a chance to "craft a story that gave players an origin synopsis into why you want to care about these characters.
"We never did with any characters in Modern Warfare," she added, "they were standalone in the moment, and we wanted to have players feel like they could connect to Hesh and Logan and the Ghost squad."
Palacios did not provide details on exactly why Infinity Ward felt they couldn't continue the Modern Warfare franchise but alluded to the fact that many of the studio's staff left in 2010 to join Titanfall developer Respawn which allowed them to make a fresh start.
"I feel like it's not necessarily the game that gave us that sense [of a fresh start], it's more of moving into a new studio. It's a unique situation to be in for any studio because for us making Ghosts, not only are we putting our heart and soul into the game but we're still really close friends with other developers. I think what we're trying to do is create a game without anything else holding us back. We really just want to focus on creating an experience that's new and fresh for us because ultimately if we don't enjoy what we're doing we're not going to be there.
"So yeah, our main focus is just making sure that we ourselves would go home and play Ghosts without thinking of anything else on the side."
Of course, just because Infinity Ward isn't working on Modern Warfare 4 doesn't mean it's not coming. Sledgehammer Games, which helped make Modern Warfare 3, is rumoured to be working on the game.
Separately, Palacios revealed that bigger, more open levels will be included in Ghosts and stealth sections will feature in a big way.
