Michael Condrey is awfully calm and collected for a guy who’s preparing to ship a game that, in all likelihood, will be the #1 or #2-selling game of the entire year. That kind of expectation should come with a lot of pressure. Instead, it’s a sunny, 74-degree day outside of Condrey’s waterfront office in Foster City, Calif. – a picture of serenity that’s seemingly mirrored inside Condrey’s own mind.

“Maybe it’s because I’ve worked on big franchises my whole life,” the co-founder and co-studio head of Sledgehammer Games begins, “[but], I mean this sincerely, it’s never a conversation you have.

“I think I’ve found over my career that I’ve worked just as hard on some of the games that weren’t as well received as those that were,” he continues, likely referencing the myriad Bond games he worked on, among others, during his time at EA before he founded Visceral Games with fellow Sledgehammer boss Glen Schofield and made Dead Space. “But the ones that you just miss on quality, it cuts you. I spent a lot of time, a lot of passion, and a lot of time away from friends and family and it didn’t get there. I don’t want to do that. I want to deliver greatness. And then, hopefully, everything else comes with it.”

The journey from making Dead Space – which Condrey never made sequels to before leaving to form Sledgehammer – to signing on for Call of Duty, the sequel-iest franchise in the games industry, must’ve been a difficult one.

“Dead Space was great,” he begins. “For us, and for me in particular, I had been at EA for almost 12 years. I look back at that time fondly. I learned a lot. I still have friends and mentors there that I consider close. And Dead Space, obviously, very special. [It won] Action Game of the Year, [it] was our first chance to do a new IP that was pretty critically acclaimed by the community, so that was a proud moment. I often tried to answer the question in a way that is analogous to sports, which I guess we felt like we were ready to play for the championship.

“I think about, for me personally, to take what we did on Dead Space and to be able to reach the number of fans that love Call of Duty is a major opportunity.”

He makes it sound so easy, but, as Uncle Ben reminds us, with great power comes great responsibility. And Condrey was initially going to use the power of Call of Duty, combined with his expertise in making a blockbuster third-person game, to break Call of Duty out of its first-person viewpoint for the first time ever.

“The very first initiative we kicked off after Dead Space was to take the learnings we had from Dead Space – delivering a compelling third-person experience – and trying to bring that together under the largest, greatest fan community with Call of Duty,” Condrey explains. “At the time, we often described it as, ‘Imagine Call of Duty with the playstyle of Uncharted.’ A lot of people would love to play that game. I want to play that game! I love first-person shooters; that’s where my heart’s at. But there are some things that third-person can do that’s really compelling when you can see your character on screen.

“We came in to do a game that, at the time, our development name for it was Fog of War. It was set in the Vietnam/Cambodia era. It was really taking our passion for Call of Duty with our experience and expertise from Dead Space and bringing that together to offer fans a new Call of Duty way to play.”

How far did that get?

“We got through first production, or more accurately early in pre-production moving towards first production where we had our first 15-minute demo fully playable. For us, that was a slice. It was about 15 minutes, which really gave you a great epic opening, some big moments, some compelling gameplay. There was something there we were pretty proud of. [But] the opportunity to work with Infinity Ward and MW3, the follow-up to at that time MW2, which was amazing, was an opportunity we just couldn’t pass up.”

Of course, the story goes that Sledgehammer was called in to “pinch hit,” more or less, after the Infinity Ward scandal in 2010. Did Condrey and Schofield even have a choice? Did the Powers That Be at Activision force the team to drop Fog of War and get Modern Warfare 3 out the door? Condrey says that wasn’t the case at all, that it was, in fact, Sledgehammer’s call.

“Glen and I weren’t going to make the decision on our own,” he begins. “We knew it was going to be really exciting, but it was also going to be fast. We didn’t have a lot of time. We were going to have to get up to speed and produce results on par with one of the best first-person shooter developers in the industry. We needed everyone’s buy-in on it. We actually took it to the team. At that time we were still pretty new in our development growth, so there was about 60 of us. We put it to a vote. I think that was great because that team felt like we were living up to our values of ‘team first.’ Everyone has a vote here, Glen and I didn’t make a decision, and, in fact, it wasn’t unanimous at first. There was a lot of strong attachment to what we’d done on Fog of War, so the first vote was a no-vote. It was sort of like, ‘Hey, we all collectively need to think about this a little bit more, ask ourselves the right questions, then come back together as a team.’ I thought that was healthy.”

So why not come back to Fog of War after doing Activision a solid with Modern Warfare 3?

“In our hearts, there’s probably a place for that game,” Condrey admits. “You never want to say in absolute terms that you wouldn’t go back to it. Coming out of MW3 was an amazing experience for us. At that time it was pretty special; our first real game for Activision, action Game of the Year, massive fan support. And that was pretty intoxicating to think, ‘Wow, this was the biggest thing of the year. We’re neck and neck with Avatar for the most enjoyed entertainment franchise of that year.’ That’s super rare, as you know. Then the decision point became, ‘What do we want to do next?’ When they asked, ‘Are you guys ready to take the lead on next-gen development and put Sledgehammer’s mark on this?’ I think the team was right there. First-person shooters – we had done it for a year and a half – it was something we were pretty excited and proud of, and to be given the first lead studio opportunity it was just an all-in moment for us.”

So Advanced Warfare it was. And surely, when it was announced that all three Call of Duty development teams (Sledgehammer, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward) would each get three-year development cycles, that must’ve been cause for celebration, right?

“You don’t throw a party,” Condrey counters. “You internalize what that means. For some of us, myself included, you go, ‘Wow. Three years is 50 percent more time, an extra year. How do we maximize that opportunity?’

I started when we were making games – I’m old now – I was making games every six months. Then you go to a year, and then it becomes a two-year cycle. Then you get three years. At first, I think you step back and that seems like a long time. Today when I think about three years from now in the industry, [it’s] hard to predict what innovation vector is going to change this industry. I think at that time, there’s a lot of excitement. We all saw the huge opportunity, the next generation hardware was coming but we weren’t sure what it was yet or how powerful it was going to be. There was excitement mixed with a little anxiety on how to really capitalize on it, but all wrapped around the studio feeling like, ‘OK, this is our chance. Coach is putting us in.’”

With an understanding of where Advanced Warfare came from, it’s time to find out what makes Condrey himself tick. Understanding that might help set our expectations for what Advanced Warfare is trying to do, and where Sledgehammer might go next. So what is Condrey’s personal favorite Call of Duty game so far?

“This one is pretty easy for me,” he starts, “but I have to break it down in a couple of different ways. First and foremost, the campaign that most struck me is just that moment where, ‘Wow, this is industry-changing, this is genre-changing’ was Call of Duty 4, the original Modern Warfare. It was remarkable. It was remarkable at a time where I was playing AC130 experiences on a console and I was watching AC130s on CNN bombing Baghdad. It was a really interesting time – talk about ripped from the headlines. I really like what we did with MW3’s co-op. We had this blend of mission modes and Survival. That’s probably my favorite co-op experience. My favorite multiplayer experience to date, throughout the whole series, was Black Ops 2. I thought Treyarch executed phenomenally well on a great multiplayer experience there.”

Pressed for specifics about what makes Black Ops 2 tops in his book, multiplayer-wise, Condrey is quick to answer. “It’s hard to answer that in a succinct sort of way. Everything from Pick 10 and the customization they offered for the first time to the map designs to the feel of the game itself, I just had more fun than I’ve ever had. It was just a super fun experience for me. They got the progression right, the weapon leveling right, the map designs right, they introduced great concepts around score streaks, they had cool modes. I thought as a package I was having more fun playing Black Ops 2 multiplayer than I’ve ever had.”

How about his favorite first-person shooter, period, of all-time?

“I’ve been playing shooters for a long time and I think back to the very early days of where I was when I was playing Doom,” Condrey recalls. “Modern first-person shooters, I think for me hands-down, the moment where I thought this is compelling narrative mixed with online experiences was the original Half-Life and Counter-Strike days. To me that was a phenomenal experience. The Half-Life campaign, Gordon Freeman’s journey in that first Half-Life, I thought it was best in class. And Counter-Strike, I played the heck out of that too. That was a nice time.”

Condrey is clearly a fan of strong narratives, so surely he must have a great hypothetical-scenario pick for what his dream license would be to work on…

“In the traditional sense, I’ve really enjoyed some amazing films like Lord of the Rings, but I would never go to those places,” he responds. “I’m not going to give you the cliché like Star Wars, although I like Star Wars. Right now I guess, you’re asking me today, I’d say I’m enamored by the narrative and quality of television today. Maybe a AAA-production-value Game of Thrones. Or maybe a character-driven version of Breaking Bad. Something that’s not your big franchise. Something more that’s just gripping me on TV today. I think those two are some of the best TV I’ve ever seen: Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad. Somewhere in there is probably an amazing game that could be made. Actually, imagine Game of Thrones in a Call of Duty online experience. That might be kind of interesting. I don’t know. But I really like Breaking Bad.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Kevin Spacey plays a key role in Advanced Warfare’s story, for which the Oscar-winning actor did his own performance-capture work. Surely Condrey must have a good Spacey story or two.

“I remember it was our second performance capture shoot, and we were doing an emotionally impactful scene,” he starts. “It was called ‘Power.’ We were there on set and the director looks around and says, ‘Wow, this scene’s not right. Kevin’s character (Jonathan Irons) wouldn’t be saying this emotional speech to his assistant. So we’re an actor short.’ He looks around and [Activision publishing CEO] Eric Hirshberg was there with us. ‘Yeah you’re right, we need another person to suit up [in the spandex performance-capture suit].’

​“We’re all sitting there looking around going ‘Wow, there are no other Pcap actors here.’ And Hirshberg goes, ‘Condrey, suit up.’ So an hour later I’m standing in front of Kevin Spacey and he’s face to face with me, delivering the ‘Power’ speech. It was remarkable. On some level it was like a bucket list, an unexpected bucket list to think that, wow, one of the greatest living Hollywood actors is three feet in front of me delivering a line as powerful as Frank Underwood has ever said. I get to check off the, ‘I acted with Kevin Spacey’ box.”

This leads to another interesting question: surely there must’ve been a short list of actors to offer the Jonathan Irons role to if Spacey had said no…

“On the short list, well, it was a short list,” Condrey confesses. “It was always Kevin, but at one point at the height of Breaking Bad, I thought this could be a [Bryan] Cranston role. Bobby Kotick, the president of Activision, is close to Angelina and Brad, so you kind of have these pie in the sky sort of, well, if this actor… But really, for the character, [on] the list the gap between Kevin and everybody else was pretty wide. Cranston just won the Emmy so he’s clearly a remarkable actor. I think he would have been great. I got to act with Kevin Spacey, so I’m glad we went with him.”

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews and Xbox Guru-in-Chief. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, on IGN, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.