What, a Good Campaign?... Is Call of Duty: WWII

The exact name of the game is Call of Duty: WWII. Here's the game that has put the World War 2 gaming theme back on the map, and stands as the first definitive World War 2 era video-game for the next-generation consoles (the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One).

The Call of Duty franchise is the leading first-person-shooter IP, and has retained its position for the top selling video-game now for every year since 2007, with the exception of the years when a GTA game is released. This is hardly surprising, and in "WWII"'s (Call of Duty, 2017) opening week on launch the title has earned more than $500 million, a figure that is almost twice the amount of Infinite Warfare's (Call of Duty, 2016) takings for last years opening launch weekend for Infinity Ward's development studio release of the final futuristic title for the Call of Duty franchise.

"WWII" has a lot to offer for the seasoned first-person-shooter gamer, especially those that are not familiar with the Call of Duty franchise, and perhaps this is you - the one who has stared clear of the COD IP, and may have instead spent your time playing the Battlefield and/or the Star Wars: Battlefront series.

In "WWII", there are 3 parts to the complete game; including an epic cinematic single player story campaign, a multiplayer-ranked choice, and the highly acclaimed zombies mode that comes in two options - the group survival map that comes with various objectives, and then the single player small house of horrors map.

In fairness, the entirety of the "WWII" game is highly acclaimed, as gaming critics are always astonished by the footing works of the Call of Duty franchise developers. In total, there are 3 separate Call of Duty developers, all of which are out-house development studios that are merely contracted to make future Call of Duty titles by the IP (intellectual property) rights holder, Activision (a games publisher giant). The 3 Call of Duty developers include (in chronological order) Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games. There is additional support from other development studios, but the majority of the development work is conducted and ran by the 3 leading development studios for the Call of Duty franchise.

"WWII" is Sledgehammer Games artistic visionary development work, and thusly they are on the edge of all criticism, constructive and otherwise, as the game enters the festive season, a true judgement for the majority of their sales. Sure, "WWII" is shocking audiences with its visual spectacles, and sure, the opening week showed superior commercial success over recent Call of Duty title sales, but the real question is whether or not this will become the best sold Call of Duty title of all time. The record for most Call of Duty title copies ever sold stands at just shy of 32 million, and this title was 2011's Modern Warfare 3.

However, this post is not about the full-game experience in "WWII", but rather a third of the games make-up. This part is of course the single player campaign, the epic World War 2 story that will be perhaps the greatest WW2 game to launch in the 2010's. So far, "WW2" is a decade favourite video-game, and is without even a hint of a doubt the best Call of Duty game that we have seen in years. Some say the best going as far back as Black Ops, a game released in 2010, but one thing is for sure, and that is the visual works and gritty experiences that Sledgehammer Games have created in "WWII"'s single player campaign will be remember for decades to come.

Call of Duty: WWII all started with an official announcement from the lead developers at Sledgehammer Games who sat down to talk about "WWII"'s campaign, and this came as somewhat of a surprise, as by now it feels as though the only part to a video-game that truly matters in the first-person-shooter genre is the multiplayer experience. Alas, this was not be, as the multiplayer mode was officially announced weeks later.

What's a single player shooter campaign in 2017 anyways? Well, my thoughts exactly, and because of this after I first received my copy of Call of Duty: WWII (or "WWII", as I so often refer to the game as simply being called) for the PS4 on November 3rd earlier this month (in the early winter for 2017) I completely ignored the campaign. As, for "WWII" I merely assumed it would be the same-old run-of-the-mill single player experience that has for a long time now been shadowed behind the epic multiplayer madness that is the Call of Duty franchise (or so it would be said for a large portion of the franchises typical player-base). To cut a long multiplayer (mostly) experience short, after finally stepping into the "WWII" single player campaign - I was hooked.

The Call of Duty franchise is known for having great single player campaigns, and sure, there have been some good ones. The World at War (Call of Duty, 2008), Black Ops (2010), and Modern Warfare Remastered (2016) campaigns stand out as being the best that the franchise would have had to offer, but 2017's Call of Duty: WWII is phenomenal in ways that the previous Call of Duty titles simply could not have been, and this is all down to production value.

The previous Call of Duty titles, for the single player campaigns will have used pure animation to create their characters, scenery, in-depth surrounds, and cut-scenes for the games respective single player story campaigns, and this limited the production value. However, Sledgehammer Games "WWII" earns its badge of honour for the most immersive single player campaign that I have played in perhaps over a decade now, and this is all thanks to seriously expensive CGI cut-scenes, proper professional castings, and for a lot of this there would have been a whole lot of actors acting whilst wearing bobble uniforms that could track their facial expressions, movements, voices, gestures, and even their body language. This kind of technology is costly, and the feeling is mutual for almost every gamer that has endeavoured the "WWII" campaign, in saying that we all want more single player campaigns like this here-on-out, and anything less, and there would be no moving on from Call of Duty: WWII.

Experiencing World War 2 is near-impossible without vast expenses that can create true production value that can usually only be seen in blockbuster pictures at the movie theatres, but for this uniquely made Call of Duty: WWII title, Sledgehammer Games have brought the WW2 era of war to the home screens in a playable story that is as defining and entertaining as was Steven Spielberg's cinematic production of Saving Private Ryan.

What Does WWII's Campaign Have to Offer? The defining tales of a soldier's entry into the greatest war to end all great wars in modern day history, and this all starts at the Normandy beach landing where you must breakthrough the enemy lines in Europe to retake France, and ultimately breakthrough the German defences to gain access into the Nazi fatherland, in Germany itself.

Honestly, the story progression is the very definition of sacrifice, as there are so many lives lost along the way on a journey following one soldier and his platoon into the very depths of German Nazi forces and high command. There is even a mission where you get to play as a woman fighting within the French resistance, and shows how these people risked and sacrificed their lives to help the American troops win the centre control of the French borders.

The first missions is the direct events that partook place on the Normandy beach landing, the very first day (D-Day) when the US military forces entered into the World War 2 fight against the German Nazi forces, and your character is a fresh recruit who has never seen action before in his entire life. He has a backstory, and it won't be long before you yourself feel as though this person has become a part of you, and even shares a similar emotional attachment that resembles the first time that I watched Saving Private Ryan and saw Private Ryan for the first time. What raw emotions the devastating events of World War 2 brings out of people, but the bravery on the field cannot ever be truly portrayed by any form of entertainment, but Call of Duty: WWII has certainly brought yet another perfect reminder forward as to why a great war like WW2 could never happen ever again.

There is a famous line in the "WWII" campaign, "No Sacrifice Too Great", which back in the days of World War 2 may have been a sign of courage and strength for the soldiers, but in the tell-tales of the events of World War 2, all that people can see is that the sacrifice was always too great. To bare such great loses is hard for the human brain to process, and so, true-event stories told through entertainment will always stand as a reminder to those that live on past the generations of individuals that lived during the days of the second great war that there is always something that can be learnt from the mass devastations of the German Nazi reign of terror, and those who fought to protect liberty and freedom for all those affected.

The campaign has some amazing sniper missions, not that the sniper is always your only option, but when sniping is this much fun you'll always find yourself searching for a sniper rifle. The second mission springs to mind, as the sniper becomes a massive help for a larger part of the mission objectives, and the key is to shoot the enemy in the head or in the back in order to get a one-shot-one-hit-kill. Otherwise, the snipers damage will be weaker at other parts of the body, and two shots to kill is maddening when there are simply so many enemies running across the battlefield. When you hold your characters breath to snipe time literally slows down in-game (not possible in multiplayer game modes), and this makes for easy-peasy headshot kills, even at great distances.

There are times when you'll get to control something other than your character throughout the mission progressions, and this includes one particular mission where you control a tank to destroy the enemy fortified tanks and artillery, and even a mission where you control a fighter plane to take down enemy Nazi fighter planes. The German Nazi forces are still strong in the enemy territory that runs throughout the European theatre, and US soldiers are taking great losses in order to make greater pushes into the Nazi's military fortresses, and where the Nazi forces stand tall they are in the cattle flocks, and it is up to you and the men beside you to kill them all.

Having only played the "WWII" single player campaign on casual difficulty I really cannot say a lot about the difficulty settings on the games story mode, but it is always worth playing through the games campaign on the lowest difficulty setting first as this way you can really just sit back and enjoy the cut-scenes without the frustrations of dying every 5 seconds because your character is stuck in a dead-lock position with a light-machine gunner tearing you down every time you spawn and instantly die. Really, a mighty-fine well-done to Sledgehammer Games for really pushing the boat out this year with "WWII"'s single player campaign story progressional mode, as it truly felt at times as though you were watching a cinematic, silver screen movie.