{"id":5343,"date":"2026-06-16T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/in-a-week-of-xbox-leadership-changes-longtime-treyarch-boss-mark-gordon-is-retiring-from-the-call-of-duty-studio-to-focus-on-his-next-chapter\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:49:00","slug":"in-a-week-of-xbox-leadership-changes-longtime-treyarch-boss-mark-gordon-is-retiring-from-the-call-of-duty-studio-to-focus-on-his-next-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/in-a-week-of-xbox-leadership-changes-longtime-treyarch-boss-mark-gordon-is-retiring-from-the-call-of-duty-studio-to-focus-on-his-next-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"In a week of Xbox leadership changes, longtime Treyarch boss Mark Gordon is retiring from the Call of Duty studio to &#8220;focus on his next chapter&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Treyarch, the Xbox-owned studio behind Call of Duty&#8217;s Black Ops games, has announced studio head Mark Gordon is retiring from his role after 22 years with the company.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon&#8217;s influence extends all the way back to 2005&#8217;s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/call-duty-2-big-red-one\">Call of Duty 2: Big Red One<\/a>, Treyarch&#8217;s&#8217;s first-ever Call of Duty title. Since then, he&#8217;s helped shape the developer&#8217;s evolution from a Call of Duty support studio to one of its lead architects, having been heavily involved in the development of World at War and the creation of the Black Ops series.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon became studio head in November 2016, initially sharing the responsibilities with Dan Bunting and Jason Blundell. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/call-of-duty-zombies-overlord-jason-blundell-exits-treyarch\">Blundell left Treyarch in 2020<\/a>, however, and Bunting departed in November the following year, amid <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/activision-boss-bobby-kotick-under-fire-after-damning-report-into-what-he-knew-of-workplace-abuse\">reports of sexual misconduct allegations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure>\n <noscript><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<\/noscript><br \/>\n<img alt=\"\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox=\"\" data-uri=\"treyarch-sutdio-logo-1.jpeg\" height=\"360\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"640\"\/><figcaption><span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Treyarch, Activision<\/cite><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;After an extraordinary 22 years with Treyarch, our own Mark Gordon has decided to retire from his role as studio head to focus on his next chapter,&#8221; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Treyarch\/status\/2066585613734957337\/photo\/1\">Treyarch said in a statement announcing Gordon&#8217;s departure<\/a>. &#8220;We&#8217;re incredibly grateful to Mark for his steady guidance and deep care for the studio, its culture, and its people. Mark&#8217;s impact on the [Call of Duty] franchise has been immeasurable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The developer has also confirmed Treyarch veterans Kevin Hendrickson and Yale Miller will now lead the studio as co-studio heads following Gordon&#8217;s departure. The pair have &#8220;decades of development and leadership experience&#8221;, it added, and both bring &#8220;a wealth of deep game knowledge and a shared commitment to Treyarch&#8217;s culture and creative ambition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The timing of the news is interesting when viewed through the lens of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-layoffs-business-reset\">Xbox&#8217;s current &#8216;reset&#8217; campaign<\/a>, and the resulting leadership shake-up. This week has <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-game-studios-craig-duncan-leaves-company\">already seen two high-profile departures in Craig Duncan and Louise O&#8217;Connor<\/a>, who left their positions as head of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/companies\/xbox-game-studios\">Xbox Game Studios<\/a> and chief of staff respectively. These leadership changes come as Xbox reportedly prepares for <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/compulsion-double-fine-ninja-theory-xbox-studio-closures-report\">larger cuts that may result in several studio closures<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/mark-gordon-treyarch-call-of-duty-departure\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Treyarch, the Xbox-owned studio behind Call of Duty&#8217;s Black Ops games, has announced studio head Mark Gordon is retiring from his role after 22 years with the company. Gordon&#8217;s influence extends all the way back to 2005&#8217;s Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, Treyarch&#8217;s&#8217;s first-ever Call of Duty title. Since then, he&#8217;s helped shape [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Black-Ops-6-(6).jpg?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp","fifu_image_alt":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1359,2603,3314,2604,2691,3340,8572,2817,245,8573,1398,7869,1211,1397],"class_list":["post-5343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-boss","tag-call","tag-chapter","tag-duty","tag-focus","tag-gordon","tag-leadership","tag-longtime","tag-mark","tag-retiring","tag-studio","tag-treyarch","tag-week","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehotedit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}