Continuing with Sledgehammer Games’ promise to be more communicative with the Call of Duty: WWII fanbase, Sledgehammer boss Michael Condrey has gone on Reddit to talk about game modes, and the oft-requested Ground War.

Unfortunately, Ground War, Call of Duty’s chaotic 9v9 mode, isn’t making a return to COD: WWII. Condrey cites “good spawns” as the cause, and the maps.

Ground War, 9v9

Some of you have asked about the outlook for Ground War in Call of Duty WWII. The reality is that maps built for balance, flow, and good spawns at 6v6 traditionally don’t hold up as well for us when playing 9v9, and this was no different for Ground Game in WWII. We track spawn data for every spawn, on every match, globally since launch, and are happy to report that our bad-spawns are at franchise historic lows. The same couldn’t be said for Ground War with 9v9 teams during development. We considered building unique maps for Ground War, like we built for our War experiences, but that just wasn’t feasible during development given our other game ambitions for MP. I can’t say that Ground War won’t come to WWII eventually, but it’s nowhere on the horizon given our current roadmap.

In addition to that, Condrey also talked a bit about the game modes available in COD: WWII at launch, and the thought process behind ’em, and also about the upcoming game modes available post-launch like Gun Game.

Game Modes at Launch:

A lot of work went into deciding which game modes would be available at launch. Map design, modes, spawns, and competitive balance are all incredibly intertwined factors throughout development. Each map needs to play well and exhibit a fair team balance across many differing game modes. It’s a huge undertaking, especially when fan expectations are as high as those in the COD community. Imagine the MP designers striving to create compelling maps that work equally well for TDM, Hardpoint, S&D, CTF and many others. Then, there’s also a very important player fragmentation factor that may not be apparent to everyone. Essentially, a fixed number of players is split up across all the modes offered. A large number of modes leads to longer lobby wait times or less ideal pings for the less popular game modes, exacerbated by the need to do lobby matchmaking across every region and time zone on the planet. We have also seen that a large number of modes can feel overwhelming or less accessible to players trying to master the game, which hurts player satisfaction and fan engagement overall. Not to mention the amount of time and energy that goes into bringing great new modes, like War, to life for each game iteration. In short, more game modes isn’t always better, and inevitably we choose to prioritize the most popular and the most compelling, while delivering the best experience we can, using every development day available.

Game Modes Post Launch

Now that launch is behind us, we are discussing a ton of really compelling game modes that have been part of the franchise history. While War, Headquarters, and Uplink/Gridiron are a few that have been introduced in our games, and that we have a lot of heart for, there are many others like Infected that we also love as players. We enjoyed seeing fans really stoked for the return of Gun Game, and we want to continue supporting that excitement throughout the DLC season ahead. Rest assured, we have a lot of ambition to keep driving hard on game updates and fixes. We’re also as committed as ever to holding a high quality on new experiences, and won’t rush adding a mode into the game if it isn’t balanced and fun for WWII.

Lastly, Condrey mentions that The Resistance event, which pertains to the game’s first DLC pack that will be released this January 30 for PS4 gamers (30 days later for PC and Xbox One), will have some news to be shared “shortly.”

Surprised that we aren’t getting Ground War? Or did Condrey’s explanation make sense? Personally, I’d rather they let everyone in on the chaos and just give a disclaimer that the maps were built for 6v6 and not 9v9.