'Call Of Duty: WW2' - An Honest Review

Remember when the first few leaks for WW2 first surfaced? The Call of Duty community seemed to collectively roar and cheer as they were finally given what they'd wanted for so many years.

At least, that's what it seemed like. While the rest of the crowd cheered "HOORAY!" one man simply responded with a "Hmm."

Yeah, that man was me.

I just wasn't convinced, though this was mostly due to whose turn it was to develop this years' offering, Sledgehammer Games. I'd been burned by them before. The multiplayer aspect of Modern Warfare 3 I personally felt was the weakest of the trilogy, and then there was Advanced Warfare.

While on one part, it gave CoD the shakeup it desperately needed, throwing us into the future and introducing the advanced movement system. On the other hand, it just wasn't very good. The exo-suits they gave us felt jarring, particularly in multiplayer, where you couldn't do half the things you could in the campaign. Even though the campaign was its only redeeming quality, that in itself is now tarnished by the now infamous Kevin Spacey. The less said about that, the better.

So the initial trailers and gameplay of their latest attempt to shake up the seriesdidn't fill me with much joy. But the beta rolled around and I found myself pleasantly surprised. WW2 was actually good. And now I've managed to play the whole game, I can comfortably say it's really good. I could even use the word "brilliant."

Do you know what is more brilliant? Me giving you three reviews in one. I know, I'm excited too.

Saving Private Ryan... in HD!

Let's start with the campaign, because why not? You play as Private Ronald "Red" Daniels, of the 1st Infantry Division of the US Army. He's broken in nice and easy by taking part in the Normandy Beach Landings — simple stuff. D-Day is something we've seen time and time again in both film and video games, we know that. While the actual landings seemed to be skimmed over a bit too quickly for my tastes, during this mission and the rest of the campaign, there is a genuine sense of camaraderie among your squad, and I felt genuine empathy towards what they went through during the roughly six-hour run time.

Each member of your squad has an ability that recharges over time that can be used to assist you in missions. They can individually offer you ammo, grenades, mortar markers, or the ability to spot enemies. It's a neat addition and it means that the people around you aren't just useless cannon fodder and are actually there to help. They are not all present in every mission as Daniels, and you realise how much you needed them when they're missing, and to me, this helped strengthen the bond between the characters and made me care for each of them equally.

The same could eventually be said for Sergeant Pierson, who, to put it bluntly, is a massive dick. Throughout the campaign, he actively tries to make your squads' lives a misery because apparently liberating France wasn't depressing enough.

You do eventually learn why he is the way he is, and he's wonderfully portrayed by Transformers actor Josh Duhamel. In fact, the whole cast is brilliant. They all feel like well-developed, believable characters who really just want to get home safely. The near-photorealistic cutscenes could have many people thinking you're watching a movie. It's easy to see why, as they are stunning. It helps humanise the characters we are with while also further stressing the true horrors faced by those brave soldiers who fought in the war itself.

My main complaint with the campaign is that the majority of the missions feel more like a "Greatest Hits" gallery. The missions aren't bad by any means, and they're actually all fairly long too, but they're not really anything we've not seen before. But surprisingly, the best mission is the one that feels the least like Call of Duty.

In "Liberation" you take control of French Resistance leader, Rousseau, as she infiltrates a German garrison. Along with Major Crowley, they aim to retrieve some explosives from an internal contact so the platoon can help liberate Paris. You're told to remember your cover story and then given pretty much the entire garrison to wander around in as you please.

Being left to my own devices like this brought about a level of tension I've never felt in a CoD game before. Being able to interact with anyone and anything meant I was always on edge, at risk of being discovered if I slipped up on my cover story. Even once you get into a more typical CoD-stealth section, you could breeze through without killing anyone; that is, if you've got more patience than me.

All in all, despite not being that long, Call of Duty: WW2 offers a typically thrilling campaign with a not-so-typically heartfelt story, even if the majority of the actual missions aren't anything new.

The Evil of the Thriller

We've now had a Zombie mode in Call of Duty for the past four years in a row. What was once a fun little easter egg has now become as big a part of the franchise as the campaign and multiplayer. For as much as I wasn't convinced by the look of the multiplayer initially, I was equally hooked by the look of the new Nazi Zombies. That was because it was being made by some of the team behind Dead Space, one of the best horror games from the previous console generation.

What we've now got this time around is a much darker, more horror-oriented version of the Zombie mode we know and love. The zombies themselves are much more varied in their appearance and much more terrifying for it.

The designs for the individual zombies are considerably scarier than what we are used to from Treyarch, and certainly the opposite end of the scale of the absurdity of "Zombies in Spaceland" from Infinity Ward. We've got zombies with no faces, zombies with massive jaws, and a weird hybrid that features the torso of one zombie on the back of another, carrying a bomb. Nazis, eh?

The main boss you need to take down as part of the main easter egg is gargantuan and absolutely disgusting to look at. It's a real mess of limbs, teeth, mechanics, and definitely has more than a whiff of Dead Space to its design. All of which is known pretty well to the poor scientist who is stuck in the bloody thing, and fancy taking a guess who has to save him? Yeah, you.

I won't share it on here, but if you must know what it looks like, then just look on YouTube. You'll need to source your own barf bag. It's quite frankly gross!

While it does feel a tad easier to stay alive if caught in amongst a group of the undead, you've honestly got more things to worry about. Multiple, unrelenting bosses, swarms of runners that literally only have skulls with no flesh, and some rather jittery jump-scares. It makes for a much more intense, heart-pounding affair.

The map itself is gorgeous and complex, set in a small German town that houses a very dark, very disturbing test facility. It certainly isn't helped by David Tennant's character screaming every time a zombie appears. It is, however, very claustrophobic. Even the more open areas feel cramped to the point where you need to actively mind where you're running, and that is without taking into account the zombies that burst from nowhere as one of the many jump-scares.

What I do like is the implementation of a proper class system in Zombies, so everyone can fulfil their own role in surviving the relentless waves of the undead. You can choose between having unlimited ammo, invisibility, the ability to knock nearby zombies down, and the ability to draw all of them towards you instead of other players.

It can make this iteration of Zombies feel a lot more tactical, and I love that. It means everyone has a skill that can benefit you in a tight spot. I like the Camouflage skill, it allows me to go invisible and revive my teammates, or simply run away if I am feeling a bit of a wuss (hint: fairly often).

But how does it fare against previous Zombie modes? If you ask me, it is fantastic. It's hard to compete with Treyarch, as they've mastered their version, but then they've had four games in the past nine years to perfect their craft; Sledgehammer, only two. Despite being a game mode based on the undead, this is the first iteration to really nail down the horror element. With the addition of a proper class system and some seriously disturbing enemy designs brings SG's second attempt on par with some of Treyarch's finest. I would like to review the mode again at the end of this year's cycle to see how the story pans out. But for now, what a start.

War. What Is It Good For?

This is what you've skim-read through my article for, it's okay, I'd have done the same. Multiplayer has been the meat and drink of the Call of Duty franchise since Modern Warfare rewrote the rulebook on how online FPS games should play some ten years ago. The quality of a CoD's online component is critical to whether it will be remembered as a series great or left to rot and forgotten, kind of like Ghosts should be.

The Headquarters area is a new social space where players can hang out in between games. It offers a place to pick up orders, try new weapons and loadouts, and even open Supply Drops. Yes, those dreaded Supply Drops.

At the time of writing, Sledgehammer is yet to activate the microtransactions in WW2 multiplayer and to be quite honest, I don't feel like they even need to be activated at all. From just playing, I've earned copious drops, both regular and rare, without any real hassle. They offer cosmetic items, XP bonuses, and Epic/Heroic variants of guns, usually lined with gold or red, which offer further XP bonuses per kill you get with that particular variant of the gun. Nothing game breaking, nothing unfair, the way crates should be.

Moving swiftly on, Sledgehammer has thrown out almost all aspects of previous create-a-class systems we've seen in the series' past and come up with something a bit different. Perks are now dead, replaced with a singular "Basic Training." Gone are the mere "classes" of old. You've got "Divisions" now, sunshine. Each Division can offer you abilities the more you rank up with each specific one. For example, using assault rifles in the Infantry Division gives you a bayonet to stick on the end of your gun, whereas a later upgrade to the Airborne Division allows you to run considerably faster.

These offer even more ways for you to rank up to suit your play style and gives you more things to prestige. You thought it was simple? Oh, have I got news for you. Not only can you prestige your individual rank seen in multiplayer, but you can also prestige each and every weapon (including the shovel, oddly), and you can also prestige each Division multiple times too.

I've written prestige so many times in such a short paragraph it's starting to not look like a proper word.

Prestige... Prestige... PRESTIGE.

Anyway, it's a refreshing set of changes. Each and every time you level up something, you get something new to play with, and it's great to see that constant stream of progress being shown to you as if to tell you what a good player you are, minus the patronising pat on the head.

The weapons themselves have a somewhat limited variety to them, but hey, it is World War II after all. They feel balanced and none of them stands out negatively as overpowered or unfair, they all feel equally as usable as long as you're using them the way they were meant to be used. I.E. SMGs/Shotguns for short range encounters, assault rifles and LMGs for medium to long range, and sniper rifles for quick scoping noobs. (Kidding).

My complaints with the multiplayer reside mostly with the maps. The majority of them have fallen into the classic Call of Duty three-lane design. I understand this is probably so it doesn't give either team an advantage or disadvantage for what side they start the game on. It wouldn't be too bad if the spawn system in CoD games seems universally broken. But even so, even if the locales offer a decent variety, the actual designs leave much to be desired.

That's not to say they're bad, either. They all look beautiful, and there are some very good maps on this game, but there are also some I fundamentally do not like, Gustav Cannon being one of them. While the titular cannon is suitably massive and a pretty cool centrepiece, what isn't okay is the fact there is almost nothing else to the map, save for some miniscule buildings littering the edges of the map. It is a snipers' wet dream, not one I like being a part of as I get killed by yet another headshot from seemingly nowhere. Don't get me started on USS Texas.

With regards to the game modes, not much has changed. You've got the usual suspects, TDM, Search & Destroy, Domination, Free For All, Capture the Flag (still, for some reason) and Gridiron, the "boots on the ground" version of Uplink.

However, for all the shortcomings of the regular maps and modes, Call of Duty: WW2 has a significant trump card: War Mode. Anyone who has played any of the Battlefield games will be familiar with the premise; one team attacks a set of varying objectives while the defending team holds them off for as long as possible.

I'm saying this loud and clear: War is the best game mode that Call of Duty has ever had to offer. Each operation has a small story to it based on real missions from World War II, including the D-Day landings. They offer a tense, high killing, hugely rewarding mode unlike anything else in the series.

While it can be a frustrating pain while playing with people who don't play the objective, there is nothing like everyone banding together to carve out a last-ditch win in the dying embers of a round. I would still recommend playing it in a party for better communication and lessens the probability of people not pulling their weight for the #squad.

There are no killstreaks either, save for a flamethrower airdrop which appears occasionally appears in each game, meaning you're almost always in a gun-on-gun situation, where player skill is usually the biggest decider in a firefight.

In terms of where the multiplayer ranks, I think as of right now it's certainly up among the upper echelons of the series. The weapons are well-balanced and all handle uniquely, the new mode is near essential, and the shakeups Sledgehammer have made to what we've come to love and hate about Call of Duty makes it feel like a breath of almost fresh air. I'm not saying it's revolutionary, but it is really bloody good.

Turns out, War is good for something.

The Bottom Line

Call of Duty: WW2 is both a return of the familiar and return to form. With a surprisingly moving, if a fairly safe campaign, coupled with a nail-biting new Zombie mode and a well-balanced, refreshed multiplayer, it is safe to say it is the most well-rounded game in the franchise since Black Ops II.

Consider me converted, Sledgehammer Games. You've done brilliantly.

Your move, Treyarch.

8.8/10