Now that this particular multiplayer centered game has had a proper cycle I feel it's time for me to share my honest views of how I found this experience. Call of Duty WW2 is a hugely important title in the franchise, and possibly the most important, so I feel it's only appropriate to give a full review on a game that took the franchise back into the past for the first time in a number of years. Publishers Activision promised to get player's boots on the ground, meaning none of this jet pack and double jumping bullshit from previous futuristic titles would be anywhere near the game. Also this title would have an added emphasis on historical accuracy, and give players an experience that mirrored titles that put this franchise on the map. The simple question is whether this change in creative direction has payed off? The answer is 'mostly'. Technically this game is yet another solid outing for the boys over at Activision. The colour palette is a rough mix of dull and brutal colours, and this is paired with a harsh soundtrack that aims to put you right into the middle of a war zone. Similarly the graphics and gameplay are nicely done, with no real revolutionary features, but nothing feels noticeably terrible. Unfortunately the game starts to show its failings when we analyse the core game modes:
We'll start with the campaign, which is a tale of two halves. The good news is there seems to have been a lot of effort put into the campaign in this Call of Duty installment. Instead of just a linear experience that can be played at the user's preferred pace, we now have an experience with a number of different mechanics required to master the mode. For instance the player now has to find health packs or use squad abilities to heal themselves instead of just waiting behind some cover for a bit before blitzing their way through the next portion of the mission. In fact there are a number of new squad abilities included in the campaign, and although they aren't the most sophisticated mechanics, they do change player strategies depending on the scenario. They don't get much more advanced than lobbing smoke grenades to rain mortar fire on enemies, but they are good additions to a mode becoming stale in its old age. The next Call of Duty game is rumored not to even bother with a single player campaign, so you can see how revolutionary these features turned out to be.
As this may be the last Call of Duty campaign I'll get to review I feel I must point out that I really did enjoy the squad centered experience for the most part, and I may even be willing to slap the phrase 'authentic' on some of the missions. Not everything blows up for no reason, and some segments show a surprising amount of grace and poignancy, if those are the right words to describe a rather average campaign. Okay the characters aren't the most memorable, but they do feel like a genuine squad facing the perils of war. The campaign is at its best when its focusing on stories of conflict within the world, and not the relationships between its characters. For some reason there's this ridiculous subplot forced into the story about treachery within the squad that makes the writing of soap operas seem classy. This subplot becomes increasingly frustrating when you discover that it eventually becomes the focal point of the whole campaign. When ignoring the betrayals of the squad the player is treated to some great missions, most notably one in which you play as a French Resistance agent aiming to infiltrate a Nazi headquarters in Central Paris. Unfortunately this highlight doesn't have much of a purpose other than a brief diversion from the main campaign, and soon its straight back to the vanilla world of Operation Overlord.
You look important mate, but that's not a good enough reason for me to give a shit about you.
The campaign really starts to fall apart when you start analysing the jumbled tone of the main storyline. The campaign aims to cover serious topics with historical accuracy, and even at one stage has you liberating a concentration camp, yet this is coupled with a few ridiculous over the top sequences and a narrative that just completely loses its serious atmosphere after a certain tragedy within the squadron. It was relatively tame before then, aside from a train chasing mission that was so stupid it made me turn my whole console off in anger. I don't think I've ever rage quit a Call of Duty game because the story was so shit, but this brief moment of stupidity was enough to infuriate me. Why would you include that foolish sequence? You have a game mode where you're trying to get people to care about these realistic events that define the characters, so why the hell are you putting this farcical nonsense anywhere near this supposedly serious tale?
You literally dodge a whole fucking derailing train in order to survive. Historical accuracy? Fuck right off.
If you were hoping for a detailed analysis of the updated Nazi zombies mode then I'm afraid you're out of luck. I hate this new update of the much loved game mode, and apart from a brief cameo from David Tennant there's nothing this stupid and lifeless (no pun intended) game mode does to make me want to play it over and over again. They've added a new stupid class system, because perks apparently weren't a good enough level of freedom, and there's also story quests that are so unbelievably pointless you wonder why you're wasting you're evening. Those story missions are how you unlock new maps by the way, although why you would ever bother when the first map is so awful to play on is the ultimate question. Quite simply Nazi zombies has become a tedious grind at best, only serving to suck out any repeatability the original game mode had.
Multiplayer, like the campaign, is a game of two halves. Don't get me wrong it's still a fun game to play, but I feel it may have lost a lot of the charm and passion that made previous editions such powerhouses. There's new stuff lying around, but these small additions cannot hope to patch over the huge problems that plague this game mode. One of the more positive additions was the inclusion of a headquarters, where players can meet before matchmaking, and even play around on a shooting range or competing in a 1 vs 1 before joining a multiplayer match. This is all good fun, but let's not forget this is Call of Duty, and so you know that some of the new features will end up ruining much loved features from previous games. The worst culprit in this scenario is the new final game killcam, which has now been changed to what the game deems is the most impressive kill. That would be a brilliant addition if it weren't for the fact that this decision is always 100% wrong, and I've had insane multikills be binned in favour of some shit hardscope a countless number of times.
Arguably an even bigger sinner is the new division system. Remember in days of yore when you could actually customise your classes to your heart's content? Well Sledgehammer decided to remove this iconic system and replace it with a dull set of preset classes where you're only allowed to change your weapons and a single perk, which I might add are all terribly balanced. There's a common theme arising that all these changes don't really revolutionise anything, and the only thing I can say about them is that they're nice little additions. However these changes are a great way to sum this whole game up. What we have is a tale of developers putting little plasters over huge gaping wounds and expecting the game to be as popular as older editions in the franchise. Not surprisingly this attitude doesn't work, and we have a result where the finished product just feels like it's missing that certain something.
Look at that pathetic level of customisation. They're just glorified preset classes.
A great example of how little effort went into these changes can be found in the map design, which to put it mildly are not up to an acceptable standard. There was a grand total of nine at launch, although this doesn't include the new 'war maps', which are much larger due to the nature of this new mission based gamemode. The core maps however are almost unanimously bland, with the only exception being a fun trip into the trenches of Normandy. The maps are so poorly designed you can't even fit more than twelve people on them now, and some of the balancing on them is quite frankly atrocious. Never has the term 'spawn-kill-die' been more appropriately used, even in game modes that support less players than in previous games. And don't even get me started on the scorestreak system. Scorestreaks are now hopelessly unattainable, especially in objective based modes where kills are worth less. Even when you do get them they're pathetic on the whole, and not in any way worth the toil it takes to eventually acquire them. A spy plane for instance is ten fucking kills in objective modes, so fuck knows how you're supposed to get the 30 plus kills required for the higher end streaks. In previous games you could get streaks that would literally end the game for less kills than a fucking pea shooter in this one. Has Activision addressed this? No, instead they've decided to present their asses to be fucked over by the competitive market, and as such we get about fifteen thousand gun balancing changes that just make guns shitter to use instead of properly balancing the fucking things. How fucked up must your priorities be to bend over to a tiny minority of players whilst completely ignoring the vast majority of casual players that buy your game just to have fun? Total madness.
Three kills for this fucking badboy that has fuck all explosive range. Unless of course you're playing a game mode such as Domination, in which case it's SIX FUCKING KILLS.
We've looked at the good, and we've looked at the bad, so now it's time for the downright ugly. This game contains lootboxes. I don't think anyone wants them, but I must say this particular system really isn't that bad and I've unlocked almost everything in them by just playing the game normally. That doesn't mean I don't feel taken advantage of, and that doesn't mean I want them anywhere near the game, I'm just frustrated that Activision felt the need to divert the game away from the wishes of its longtime players just to make a quick buck.
Then we get to the feature that I find the most insulting. Other flaws listed in this review are mere annoyances, but the following feature just completely ruins the experience in many ways from my personal experience. I don't know what idiot decided this was the way to go forwards, but for whatever reason there is an absence of Nazi imagery in the multiplayer game modes, I suppose with the intention to not glorify Nazi extremists. I will say that whatever fucking moron made that decision is an ignorant shitbag attempting to rewrite history into this idyllic misrepresentation in an attempt to not come across as offensive. Well you've certainly pissed me off, and I find the decision to remove important historical points in a mature rated shooting game, where the aim is to put bullets into your opposing number, a disgraceful decision that insults the memory of real individuals who died under this horrific regime. You happily keep every single other historic nation in the game, because as these idiots believe it was only Nazi Germany that committed war crimes during this brutal conflict. This decision, as well as many others made in the development process, just leaves me confused. You have a campaign that marches to the tune of showing history at its most brutal, with repeated whiffs of historical accuracy carrying the storyline. Yet at the same time you have a multiplayer game mode that fails to acknowledge one major party in a conflict, whilst at the same time allowing players the ability to play as a female ethnic minority soldier for either The Wehrmacht or The Red Army. How can I take a supposedly historically accurate game as a serious piece when its been shat on by idiotic creative decisions?
Aside from angering me the multiplayer mode is overall just quite average. It's simply not unique or novel enough to make me favour it over any other Call of Duty, and that's really the fundamental problem with the whole game. Overall I'm glad that Activision decided a little bit of nostalgia was the correct move going forwards, although I suspect it was the success of Battlefield One that really made that decision for them. When we compare these two shooters I have to give the edge to Battlefield, as whilst this Call of Duty has solid gameplay, there's still a lot of rough edges lying around. That's not to say this is a bad game, and the flaws are rarely frustrating, with the majority of features inviting people to play for extensive periods of time.
Call of Duty WW2 is a good game to pick up and play, but as a Call of Duty title I can't help but feel this is one big missed opportunity. It's such a shame we didn't get a modern classic, as the quality at the core of this game is unfortunately marred by moronic creative decisions and a general lack of passion displayed in vast areas of the game. It's still as action packed as any Call of Duty game, which is really the selling point of the series, and I'm glad we've reached that point without any silly jet pack foolishness, but rather embarrassingly I'm now left waiting for another creative spark to get this series off its backside again. Please take my advice and join me on the COD 4 remaster. That's a proper multiplayer shooter that understands what makes the series great.
Final Score: 6/10
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