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Posted on May 21, 2013, Phil Hornshaw Infinity Ward: Call of Duty: Ghosts Mod Tools ‘Still Valuable’

Call of Duty: Ghosts is taking the first-person shooter franchise into the next generation and its new engine will expand what the series is capable of delivering, but we still don’t know of modding will be a part of CoD’s next-gen package.

Speaking at Activision’s pre-E3 event in Los Angeles, Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin told Game Front that mod tools are something he and the team behind Call of Duty: Ghosts would like to return to the franchise.

“Much to my chagrin, and I’ve had this conversation — like our lead single-player designer, he’s a hard-core PC guy, that’s all he plays,” Rubin said. “… And we keep talking — ‘we have to put mod tools back in, have to put mod tools back in.’

The big hold up, however, is the time involved with making the mod tools for players to use. Rubin said the time required was significant on the last CoD title to include mod tools, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

“Honestly, for CoD 4, it took our guys, it was basically a designer and a coder, mixed up but four to five, maybe six months of work, just by themselves, just doing that,” Rubin said. “And if you remember with CoD 4, they didn’t come out when we launched, they came out afterwards. It’s just so much investment of time.”

But Infinity Ward seems to have some desire to put mod tools back into the CoD titles. Call of Duty 4 has garnered several cool mods over the years, and two years ago, former Infinity Ward Creative Director Robert Bowling mentioned at E3 2011 that the company was looking into including mod tools and dedicated servers in Modern Warfare 3. Those tools never materialized, though, and it’s probably wishful thinking to hope that Infinity Ward will bring them back in Ghosts.

Still, Rubin said he thinks mod tools still are a useful feature for Infinity Ward to include in its games.

“I think it’s still valuable,” Rubin said. “I think it’s really valuable because, first off you’re encouraging the community to partake in the game more, but also because, for a selfish reason, it’s a great way to find great talent. So it’s a win-win for everybody, but it’s just that time is a challenge.”

Does Infinity Ward need to get mod tools into Call of Duty: Ghosts to catch your attention? Sound off in the comments!