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The trouble with revisiting WW2, a setting adopted by dozens of different games over the years, is that it's hard to avoid treading water. EA's Battlefield 1, which is set in WW1, did a fine job of moving back to a historical setting, because it did so in a novel way. BF1's campaign balanced its glorification of wartime violence with a deeply personal story. Behind every shot and every death was a reminder that war should rarely be celebrated. While far from perfect, BF1's mature approach to recreating a century-old conflict remains refreshingly different.

A similarly "grounded, human, and intimate" campaign is promised for Call of Duty WWII, although it's hard to see where the bombast and spectacle of Activison's E3 demo fits into that. A lack of context certainly didn't help. Activision assaulted viewers of the the hands-off demo with expertly choreographed set pieces and wince-worthy headshots. Buildings were razed to the ground by mortar fire, while the bodies of fallen soldiers were dragged to safety through fields of dismembered limbs. Medics handed over health packs as support (your health no longer automatically regenerates), while a man's torso was bombed to smithereens in glorious technicolour.

An armoured car, driven through town by the Germans, became a point of attack, after which waves of enemy soldiers were mowed down by the car's roof-mounted machine gun. In a spectacular ending to the demo, a bell tower—in which the player has been sniping soldiers—begins to collapse, beginning a heart-pounding descent to the bottom of the tower with the aid of a two-ton church bell. Call of Duty WWII is every bit the overblown action movie, but it seems to do little to back up that action with a meaningful plot. Replace the Brownings and the Winchesters with a modern arsenal, and the blockbuster scenes of the demo could've come from any CoD of the last 10 years.

The protagonist, a fresh-faced Texan recruit named Robert "Red" Daniels, is the classic everyday soldier—the Captain Miller of Saving Private Ryan, or the Private Witt of The Thin Red Line. But there's little sign that his character goes any deeper than point and shoot. Not every take on WWII needs to be Saving Private Ryan, or present a deep and meaningful meditation on the atrocities of war. But this game is travelling a well-worn narrative path. Activision has failed to show how, as promised, Call of Duty WWII pushes the conversation forward.

Maybe Call of Duty WWII is simply the same shallow, action-heavy shooter as its predecessors. That wouldn't be the end of the world, even if the horrors of WWII arguably deserve more. Indeed, going by a brief hands-on with the game's multiplayer mode, the core mechanics are perfectly executed. A new mode, simply dubbed "War"—where a team is tasked with completing four different objectives to a time limit while the opposition defends—is one of the most compelling I've played in some time. But we we were promised so much more.

So what's Call of Duty WWII to be Activision? A shallow, if entertaining shooter, or a game of depth and soul? Here's hoping we get an answer soon.