In the wake of poor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reviews, a Bloomberg report has found that the game suffered from development issues that stem from questionable management practices. Modern Warfare 3 was developed in less than 1.5 years — half the development time of previous entries.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been panned in both critic and user reviews

Journalist Jason Schreier spoke to people familiar with Modern Warfare 3’s development, who revealed that not only was production rushed, but developers were forced to crunch and work nights and weekends, leading to immense stress. The DLC-turned-game was reportedly released to fill in the gap after a full-fledged Call of Duty game scheduled for 2023 was internally delayed.

Activision continues to deny Modern Warfare 3 was conceived as DLC, but the game’s own PS5 listing, as well as its developers, state otherwise. Speaking on condition of anonymity, staff told Schreier that they feel “betrayed” by Sledgehammer Games because they were promised that they wouldn’t have to deal with another short and stressful development cycle following the release of Vanguard, but the studio’s management reneged on that promise.

Analysts have told Bloomberg that while this year’s Modern Warfare 3 is unlikely to have a lasting negative impact on the series overall, the review fiasco may result in Microsoft making necessary changes to development.