High Moon Studios

High Moon Studios is an American AAA game-development studio based in Carlsbad, California. It develops action-focused games and provides co-development support for large-scale franchises, with current work centered on Activision's Call of Duty ecosystem.

Founded in 2001 as Sammy Entertainment Inc., the company became Sammy Studios, Inc. in 2002. A management buyout in March 2005 established the independent High Moon Studios, Inc. brand. Vivendi Universal Games acquired the studio in 2006; following the formation of Activision Blizzard in 2008, it became part of Activision Publishing. The studio remains active within Microsoft Gaming following Microsoft's 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Development work

High Moon has led development on original and licensed console games including Darkwatch, Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and Deadpool. It later expanded into major franchise collaboration, contributing to Destiny and Destiny 2: Forsaken before becoming a continuing co-developer for Call of Duty.

Its work on the franchise has included single-player missions, multiplayer levels, PC engineering, live-service assets, and map co-development across releases such as Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Modern Warfare Remastered, Call of Duty: WWII, Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard, Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III, Black Ops 6, and Call of Duty: Warzone.

Capabilities

The studio's production capabilities span:

• Full-cycle game development and AAA co-development
• First-person shooter and third-person action-game development
• Cross-platform engineering, porting, engine optimization, and performance profiling
• Systems, narrative, and level design
• Character, environment, lighting, technical animation, and rigging work
• Real-time visual effects, technical audio, sound design, and voice-over production
• Live-service multiplayer production workflows

High Moon operates as an on-site development team in Carlsbad, with engineering, art, audio, and design disciplines supporting its game-production mandate.