Call of Duty franchise snags Naughty Dog talent

It looks like the team at Activision’s Infinity Ward Studio has been infused with more talent, this time from Naughty Dog.  Two Naughty Dog developers, Jacob Minkoff (Lead Designer on The Last of Us and Uncharted 3) and Taylor Kurosaki (Cinematic Production Lead for Uncharted 3) have joined Infinity Ward, and it sounds like they’ll be working on a new Call of Duty game.

The developers both tweeted their excitement to join the Infinity Ward team, one landing as a design director, the other entering IW as the studio’s narrative director.  It’s sounding like Infinity Ward is going to be using some fresh perspectives for their next game, from developers who are seemingly at the top of their game.

Infinity Ward was decimated when its founders and a good part of the team left to form Respawn Entertainment a few years back.  Since the shuffle, we’ve seen the team from Neversoft enveloped into Infinity Ward, and with two new high profile hires, Infinity Ward may be on their way back to the top of the food chain when it comes to Call of Duty.

The studio’s last game, Call of Duty: Ghosts was the worst received Call of Duty title in years, critically.