After nearly a decade at Infinity Ward, executive producer Mark Rubin left in early 2015 and found himself able to play games without the demands of making them. In a 2016 GamesBeat interview, he described why he stepped away, how his job had changed as the studio grew, and what it felt like to encounter Call of Duty as an ordinary player again.
Why Mark Rubin left Infinity Ward
Rubin said he had worked at Infinity Ward for almost ten years, starting on Call of Duty 2 and leaving in early 2015. By then, he said, the studio had grown to more than 260 people. His responsibilities had expanded along with it: alongside hands-on production work, he took on studio management, business matters, public relations, marketing, and speaking for the developer with Activision’s marketing staff.
He recalled doing menu work and writing scripts on Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2, as well as a range of other production tasks. As his role shifted toward leading the studio and representing it, he felt less connected to the work he had once done directly. “It felt more like riding the horse than leading the horse,” he told GamesBeat.
Rubin described his departure as a planned pause rather than a permanent exit from game development: “It was a pure sabbatical. I told my friends I was retiring because it sounded cool, but really I knew I was just taking a break from development.” He said he had been doing the work for a long time, felt some burnout, and wanted a better balance between work and life. Recalling his exit interview, he said an HR representative told him, “You haven’t taken a vacation in six years.” Rubin also described the pace as “always going, always in a rush, always in challenge mode.”
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What changed when he became a player again
The immediate difference was having time to play. Rubin said he could finish single-player games, return to titles to collect or complete more content, and spend longer with games he previously had time to sample only briefly. “I have the time now!” he said. At the time of the interview, he named Marvel Heroes and Star Wars: The Old Republic among the games he played regularly.
He was also looking forward to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Watching a new trailer from outside the studio offered a different pleasure: he could see it without knowing how it had been made or having helped create it. Rubin called that change strange but enjoyable. It was his personal experience of stepping away from development, not a claim about how every former developer feels.
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Why Call of Duty: Ghosts was especially difficult to make
Rubin called Call of Duty: Ghosts the hardest game he had made at Infinity Ward. In his account, the team had a two-year production cycle, built a new engine, launched on two new consoles, and also supported other platforms. He described the project as an unusually demanding combination of technical and scheduling challenges.
The team also tried more open, organic multiplayer maps instead of the more familiar corridor-like layouts. Looking back, Rubin felt that experiment did not work as well as the team intended, though he still valued trying something different. That was his retrospective opinion, not an objective verdict on the game.
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What Rubin said about the series’ future
As an outside observer, Rubin speculated about possible directions and settings for future Call of Duty games. He framed those thoughts as his own guesses, not as insider knowledge or an official plan. His interview is best read as a snapshot of his transition after leaving Infinity Ward, rather than as a statement about the franchise’s current direction.
These recollections come from Dean Takahashi’s edited GamesBeat interview with Rubin, published September 21, 2016 and updated June 19, 2025. Read the interview at GamesBeat.
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- GLOBE‑SPANNING CAMPAIGN — Fight across the Korean Peninsula, New York, Paris, and Mumbai in a high‑stakes narrative where global conflict escalates and survival depends on tactical precision.
- MULTIPLAYER BUILT ON CONTROL — Engage in grounded, precise combat where fluid movement, player choice, and refined mechanics give you greater control in every firefight.
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