Call of Duty WWII puts boots back on the ground

Three years ago, the world had its first glimpse of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. It was Call of Duty on steroids, far different from the type of games the franchise had released in the past. Advanced Warfare featured new movements, specifically due to jetpacks, that changed everything about the game. In the following two years, Call of Duty continued the trend of advanced movements, much to the dismay of longtime fans. Now, however, Call of Duty is going back to its roots.

Call of Duty WWII will release in November 2017 and slow the pace of the game significantly. The original Call of Duty, released in 2003, was also set during WWII, the most prolific war the world has ever seen. Multiple Call of Duty titles afterward continued telling WWII stories, up until World at War in 2008.

With nine years since a Call of Duty game was set in WWII, major changes are expected because video game technology has advanced significantly since then. Better graphics and smarter AI have improved the look and feel of games, but those aren’t the only aspects that make a game enjoyable. Competitive Call of Duty fans, especially, are most excited about the fact that WWII will be slower paced with boots back on the ground.

“For fans in general, a return to the strategic, grounded fast action of multiplayer where we began? Frankly, people are going to go bananas. It’s going to be great,” Sledgehammer co-founder Michael Condrey told Gamesradar.

Strategic, eh? Advanced movement created a different type of strategy – a flood the hill until you win it type strategy, a fly across the map and pick up all four kills in 15 seconds type strategy. Maybe now Search and Destroy will feel more like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Hardpoint will be as great as it was in Black Ops II. We can hope, at least.

As usual, the casual and competitive experiences will be vastly different from each other. Competitive players do have a few wishes, though, which were explained perfectly by Alan “Bricey” Brice in a Gfinity article. We will be happy if the weapons are well balanced so that one gun doesn’t dominate all the others, if maps are designed with competitive play in mind, if a theater mode is added, and last but not least, if League Play is implemented.

Multiplayer predictions and what they mean

It’s way too early to tell what Call of Duty WWII multiplayer will really be like, but we can take the few details given so far to make some predictions.

Unconventional maps. Advanced movement and new technology allowed for creative map design, likely inspiring new ideas for boots on the ground as well. WWII is going to have some unique maps, as stated by Condrey to Gamesradar, perhaps with water and other special movements facilitated by the map itself (ie movable objects, ability to swim).

Specialist abilities aren’t going to be completely eliminated, but they won’t be anything like what we’ve seen in Black Ops III and Infinite Warfare. In the single player campaign, squad members are going to play a key role. Some squad members will be available to provide extra ammo, and others will be medics. Translate this to multiplayer, and each player on the team could have a unique role based on something other than the gun they are carrying.

Pick up your fellow squad mates and keep moving forward. #CODWWII pic.twitter.com/FaYLqIX9tZ — Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) April 28, 2017

New game modes will be introduced in WWII. We already know this for sure, because Condrey spoke excitedly about a mode called ‘War’, where one side protects objectives from the enemy and then falls back to a secondary objective when overrun. To Condrey, War will be the cornerstone of the game. Will it make the cut for competitive play though? If so, it would completely change Call of Duty esports as we know it. However, it’s more likely that we will be playing Search and Destroy, Hardpoint, and Capture the Flag, with the obvious omission of Uplink, which just doesn’t make sense in a WWII setting.

Much more information concerning the multiplayer aspect of Call of Duty WWII will be available when the game appears at the E3 Expo in mid-June.

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