Treyarch

Treyarch was founded in 1996 as Treyarch Invention by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü. Its first games came out in 1998: Olympic Hockey '98 for the Nintendo 64 and Die by the Sword for Windows. They were followed by the Triple Play baseball games, Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm (2000) for the Dreamcast, and Dreamcast versions of Neversoft's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

Activision bought the studio in 2001. Under its new owner it made Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Ultimate Spider-Man (2005), along with Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer and Minority Report: Everybody Runs. In 2005 it absorbed Gray Matter Studios and joined the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, built on its own Treyarch NGL engine, based on id Tech 3. Call of Duty 3 (2006) followed, then Call of Duty: World at War and 007: Quantum of Solace in 2008.

In 2010 Call of Duty: Black Ops launched the sub-series that now defines the studio. It broke launch records and won Best Shooter at the Spike Video Game Awards. Black Ops II (2012), Black Ops III (2015), the best-selling Call of Duty, and Black Ops 4 (2018) came next. Treyarch also works as a support studio: for Infinity Ward it made the Wii version of Modern Warfare 3 and the Wii U version of Ghosts.

In 2020 it took over from Sledgehammer Games on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, made with Raven Software, with Treyarch leading multiplayer and Zombies. It teamed up with Raven again for Black Ops 6 (2024), now on an engine shared with the series' other studios, and for Black Ops 7 (2025). It is based in Los Angeles, with studios in Vancouver and Austin, and remains part of Activision. Design director David Vonderhaar left in 2023 after 18 years.