"The team is polishing and pouring love into [Call of Duty: World at War]," Treyarch senior producer Noah Heller told Videogamer. "But that's the real difference between this game and Call of Duty 3. It's the time to actually iterate and get things right, to make things feel right."

To keep the successful Call of Duty series releasing on a yearly basis, publisher Activision arranged a development rotation in which series creator Infinity Ward could work on Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat while Treyarch completed Call of Duty 3 in a span of just eight months.

"I don't think [Call of Duty 3] was a filler title," added creative lead Rich Farrelly. "Because we were so focused on making the best game we can, sometimes we, at least in that case, we tried maybe to put too much in the game for the amount of time we had to develop."

Work on Call of Duty: World at War began shortly after the completion of Call of Duty 3, granting Treyarch a much lighter development schedule.

"Biting off more than you can chew is a big thing," noted Heller. "Look at the great games of just this last six months or year... What these games have in common is enough time to polish and iterate on it, and I think as an industry we're learning how important that is."

"A player doesn't know when he buys a game that this game was a year cycle or a two year cycle. He just knows about the quality of the game... This is a game where we really wanted to show what we can do when we have time," Heller concluded.

Previously referred to as Call of Duty 5, Call of Duty: World at War arrives on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS this fall.