Call of Duty needs no introduction. But as the shooting franchise has continued to dominate in the last few years, a few vocal criticisms started to emerge.
Fans were becoming tired of the future (or near-future) settings complete with ray-guns and antigravity devices. Some felt that CoD was straying too far from the roots of gritty, Earth-bound combat.
Call of Duty: WWII, then, is a return to form in every sense of the word. Spaceships and moon bases have been replaced with the beaches of Normandy.The combat is gritty, realistic and more tactical than before - whether you’re working through the single player campaign or fighting others online.
At the E3 conference in Los Angeles, Mirror Tech was given brief hands-on time with WWII ahead of its general release on November 3. We played a team multiplayer match running on the PlayStation 4 Pro.
Although the game is instantly recognisable as a Call of Duty title, there are a few key differences. Boosting has been removed and the game as a whole feels slightly less frantic and a bit more tactical.
The historical weapons feel like accurate representations and you need to decide if you’d rather be running-and-gunning with a Browning Automatic Rifle or picking out enemies with a Carbine. What you can pick up in speed you might loose in accuracy.
While the gameplay might be less frantic it hasn’t slowed down in any way. Speedy reaction times are needed or you’ll find yourself back at the respawn point frequently. For non-CoD players the learning curve is still a little bit steep and you’ll want to put some time into the campaign mode before venturing into the online arena.
The graphics are top notch and both lighting and weather conditions are immediately noticeable as you scramble frantically around trenches or through a half-demolished French farmhouse. The developers at Sledgehammer Games worked with historians to capture the accuracy of the time period from the locations to the costumes and weapons.
As expected, the game doesn’t shrink away from the horrors of the European conflict. Scything down enemies with well-placed machine gun fire results in a splatter of blood and either a crumpling of the body or a flying carcass depending on the intensity.Ultimately, Mirror Tech came away extremely impressed with the game. Our time with it was far from conclusive but it feels like exactly the right move to reinvigorate the franchise.
Stepping back in time is exactly what was needed to move the PlayStation’s biggest first-person shooter forward.