Infinity Ward has revealed the inside details on the greatest AI companion in the history of video games, Colin the dog from Call of Duty: Ghosts.
On Tuesday, Colin stole the show at the otherwise-disappointing Xbox One launch event when he bounded onto screen in his role as a trusty canine helper for the faceless military goons in Activision’s latest shooter. The internet sat to attention and begged for more, lapping up Colin’s first tweets (later proved to be fake) and fan art of various dog breeds dressed in camp gear and carrying weapons.
And now, Eurogamer can reveal intimate details about the immense challenge of bringing Colin into the Call of Duty universe.
“For me as the animation lead, [the biggest challenge of Ghosts] was definitely working with the dogs,” lead animator Zach Volker said in an interview given at a demo event a week before the Xbox One reveal, his use of “dogs” suggesting that Colin may have been working with stunt doubles. “We’d never mo-capped a dog before! Working with two-legged characters is hard enough. The session was crazy.”