9 Once-Beloved Video Game Developers That Fell From Grace

8. Infinity Ward

There was a time - right around 2007 when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was blowing up, that Infinity Ward were hailed as some of the finest developers in the industry.

Headed up by twin-masterminds Jason West and Vince Zampella, they'd go on to round off the Modern Warfare trilogy - changing the face of first-person shooting in the process - only for a monumental clanger to drop with COD: Ghosts.

The reason came from both West and Zampella having secret meetings with EA to kickstart their own studio away from Activision during the development of Modern Warfare 3 - to which Activision found out after they became public, and literally marched them off the premises.

Tough break.

West and Zampella would go on to form Respawn Entertainment and release the immaculate Titanfall titles, but Infinity Ward?

Well, now essentially without the twin visionaries that seemed to wrangle everybody together so well, they'd end up releasing Infinite Warfare; the single-most hated COD instalment yet. And, as any COD fan will tell you, over the years they've been usurped by Treyarch, originally the Robin to their Batman, who've consistently released better games on a regular basis anyway.