It has been a little while since my last post due to a bit of a gaming rut, real life business, and work claiming my time for the past few months - I found myself at the autumn sale with a opportunity to buy the Call of Duty Warchest bundle, which I’ve wanted to revisit since I was a kid. Little to my knowledge this would be an hyper fixation they would talk about in the history books. Since playing Call of Duty, I have since played nearly (with the exception of some console exclusives) every World War CoD in its entirety - giving me a chance to witness the evolution of the series, have fun playing world class shooters, and learn a lot of history (both through the game and through outside research). I will use this essay to collect my thoughts about each entry, and compare and contrast to ultimately find which title I enjoyed the most, and which title is actually worth revisiting all these years later. Now, we travel back in time to the game that started it all.
The year is 2003. Game systems are more powerful than ever, WW2 games are largely for niche markets and PC, and Band of Brothers released to critical acclaim a few years prior. The boys working on Medal of Honor want to form their own studio - Infinity Ward is born. The first game started the series staple of multiple campaigns from multiple factions perspectives - the US, the British, and the Soviets.
The story is a war story obviously. Heros, valor, the call of duty (see what I did there?), and the men and women who tell these tales. Unfortunately the infamous Normandy landings were not present in this game, and the US side of the story felt a bit weak compared to the other allied counterparts, serving as the focal point to portions of the British campaign. Standouts for me however are when the Americans rescue Cpt Price from a Nazi interment camp - this is done under a 10 minute timer, which really emphasizes the urgency. A great segue into the British campaign. When the Brits have to hold the Bridge against an never ending onslaught til reinforcements arrive, a common theme in this first game, although not the best of the timed survive type missions - more on that later. Lastly, of course when the Soviets retake Stalingrad - this was probably the most standout mission in the entire campaign, and highlighted the Soviets Unions brutality, shooting their own men for desertion, and forcing you to push the line even with no weapon. Each campaign highlighted a specific role, with the US playing more of a support, British playing into that speciality, and the Soviets doing brute force, hammered in each factions part in the conflict in a neat package that hadn’t been done before. For the time, I’m certain it was a welcome perspective. Amongst the story, the game for me would be nothing without the chaos of war, illustrated through its sound design.
The sound was absolutely chaotic, something I don’t think the future series quite captured as much since there was a lot less music during normal gameplay and you had just a symphony of shooting and explosions that made it quite difficult to even hear the speaking at times. Perhaps unintentional due to limitations, but made it more immersive for me. One of my favorite “effects” is when there is a slight pause in the fighting, giving this eerie silence across the battlefield, before erupting again into chaos. This moment is present in all the games really but I wasn’t expecting that this early in the series. A moment that I really liked, and really added to the tension of a campaign. The tension was likely heightened (at the time) by realism of the game, in both its sound, and its look. For me, since this is so old, looked dated at times, but for others the look of this game pushed boundaries that set it apart as a titan of the industry.
Compared to other titles that came out around this time, Call of Duty fits right into that “realism” category. Sure it’s dated now, but in 2003 this felt like real life. I could only imagine playing this in a dark room with the speakers blasting on a big TV (more on that experience later). Yes it’s ugly at times, but nothing so offensive that wouldn’t make me want to play it. The set pieces were amazing, and what the developers were able to achieve in immersion in 2003 were incredible. A solid start for a generation of games soon to come.
Albeit old, I think this game still holds up remarkably well considering the limitations of the past. The writing was good, and the characters memorable, more so the sergeants and captains of each faction (Cpt Price & Sgt Moody), and less so the silent private you are playing as. The sound design was immersive, and the music bombastic, although I can’t remember any pieces that stuck out. The look of the game is dated but the effects and weapons still hold up, but I can’t judge that too harshly for a game that came out over 20 years ago. Call of Duty laid the ground work for the series, establishing many of the staples that are present in the later titles. Perhaps not ahead of its time but what it did, it did well - and the proof is in the pudding. Call of Duty was here to stay.
B+
2004 is knocking, and we don’t have a new mainline Call of Duty on the horizon. What we do have is a rather large expansion of the base game that was packaged and sold as United Offensive. This was the first of a few expansions for the first game, another of note being Big Red One, and was a way to release yearly without bogging down the main development team. Gray Matter Studios stepped in here to make the expansion while Infinity Ward was busy working on the second entry to the series. The story was focused on the 3 factions of the original game still, but later battles in the war - namely The Battle of the Bulge on the US side and Karkov with the Soviets.
For me, the American side really shined in this expansion. Really taking inspiration from the Foy episodes from Band of Brothers, the Americans are seen seizing Belgium from the German forces, and holding off some of the last attempts to prevent allied forces from entering Germany. A quintessential part of this first game is back, where you have to defend against never ending hordes for a set timer until reinforcements arrive. The most memorable of this trope being the final house you siege, and subsequently defend from the Germans. This one isn’t quite a “timed” survival so to speak, because you hold and hold against never ending soldiers, tanks, half tracks, until you are low on ammo, barely any health and being absolutely overran. At that exact moment of worry, the planes roll in and the enemy retreats. Absolute cinema, and easily the highlight of this expansion for me.
On the other hand…the way the expansion actually ends, with the Soviets in Kharkov, was a much different experience. Son pretty generic forgettable missions, culminating in perhaps one of the most frustrating gaming experiences I think I’ve had in recent memory. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, your mission is to defend a recently taken tank manufacturing plant in a train depot. No problem, sounds like a normal finale to a war game. Only issue is, you are attacked from all sides, snipers on roofs, tanks, and a fucking plane bombing you constantly. Peek, the AI is instantly eyes on you. No heals present, barely enough ammo present, and Hitlers entire army waiting for you to unfortunately stick your head out of cover. You need to keep moving because of the plane, and need to sit still because of the tanks. Neat idea, and just awful execution.
The British campaign was alright, and not really bad not really great.
C
2005 - Xbox 360 is out. The next generation of Call of Duty is ready for gamers. What is in store is a bigger, badder, more cinematic experience. One that emphasizes the biggest moments of the War, in ways technologically impossible in the first entry. The 3 way campaign is back again, and like the first games highlights the same factions, but in a slightly different order. You start in the Red Army, progress onward to the Brit’s, and finish off with the Americans. Something that stood out to me, opening Call of Duty 2 on a cold Christmas morning in 05, and jumping right into the tundra with the Soviet campaign.
Another 3 war stories, a formula that works, and for good reason, variety. Whether it’s in the brutal snowscapes of Stalingrad, the sandy towns of North Africa, or the wet forests of Normandy, the campaign as a little of each flavor of the war, which was nice to have a little more variety than the first games mostly green and cityscaped levels. What I really liked about the start of this being in the Soviet Union, is that you start in a defensive position. A slow start with the basic training, where you throw potatoes like grenades because the Red Army couldn’t afford real ones on training haha. The story then focuses on the defense of Stalingrad, where you take and hold various points of interest for the Red Army, pushing back the Germans in a final offensive at Stalingrad city hall.
Moving to the Brits and the North Africa campaign, the most of it is moving to capture key towns in Tunisia. The highlight here for this middle campaign would be the tank battles, wide open spaces battling against the german tigers was expanded on from the first game, and the tank controls were a little refined to make them less clunky. I liked these missions, but the setting was just generic desert. Some of the best missions truly were on the American side.
We finally get to see Normandy beach in action. Storming the shore, climbing the cliffs and assaulting the bunkers was awesome - and for 2006 this blew my mind the horror it was trying to depict that day. Still the vibe of the story goes, Hero charges forward and liberates the controlled territory from Nazi hold. The cool thing about the american campaign is you play a little bit of tug of war with the germans, going back and forth with key strongholds on Normandy beach, being pushed back by a huge counter attack, which made the game feel more alive. Hill 400 was a great, what I thought, capstone to the campaign defending against all odds and holding out until you nearly run out of live and ammo. Suddenly, the planes come through, destroy the tanks assaulting your position and you are done. Nice! This is what the first game was best at evoking. The only issue in retrospect is, the campaign should have ended there, but there was one last mission to cross the Rein, which wasn’t bad, but felt like kinda a wet fart compared to the feat you accomplished in the penultimate mission.
One of the other things that I want to bring up as a final is that 2 introduced the idea of regenerating health. As opposed to the previous entries where you had to scavenge for health packs, and had to play more carefully, the recharging system let you be a little more aggressive which I liked, and gave you the ability to actually keep going instead of just sitting around not moving like the first game. This leads to less frustration and was a great move at the time for the devs. Overall, the game is an improvement over the first, perhaps not in most of the story because I remember bits and pieces from the Soviets and British, where the real star of this was the Americans. Alas, it was a fun romp, and more of a good thing.
B
Treyarchs first entry into the series, and boy what lengths I took to actually play this. Firstly, I had to get my old Xbox 360 from my parents house, get branch new cables, setup an entire retro gaming area in my house (okay, I just did that and it really had nothing to do with call of duty but it was a catalyst), then buy CoD3 on eBay and wait patiently just to play it.
This campaign was likely a little too ambitious, especially considering this is Treyarchs first foray into the franchise. You play as 4 characters, instead of the typical 3, Americans, British, Canadians, and Polish, a unique set of scenarios for sure! The campaign however is focused on a particular region of fighting in Normandy called the Falaise Gap, where all the allies grouped together to push back the german forces into Belgium and liberate Paris, which I feel really helped the otherwise a little all over the place, albeit flowed well due to the nature of how the campaign was structured.
So the thing I noticed right away for the 3rd installment, is it felt a little more personable. With actual in game cutscenes with dialog, instead of the norm of a briefing or short military video playing before hand, it gives the game a little more character. The soldiers were riffing with one another, immersing you into this rag tag company. The writing was believable and one of the opening lines from your sergeant was something along the lines of “You’re no use to me dead” - to which one of your smart ass team mates replies with “What kind of pep talk was that?”. The story continues on with pretty typical Call of Duty gameplay, with a mix in of Band of Brothers type talk in between battles. I really enjoyed fighting along side Guzzo and Sarge, and hearing there banter between each other. The other factions have similar banter, of the ones I remember most would be Doyle and the “Frenchie” (who insisted on never being called “Frenchie”) from the British and French resistance missions, and Robichaud from the Canadian side (who was scandanavian and his accent just stood out so much and gave me a chuckle hearing him yell at me). Unfortunately, while the Polish guys were fun, I don’t really remember a whole lot about them cause most of their missions were tank focused so to me it was kinda disembodied voices.
Overall, Im happy with 3. You can really se the series is starting to get that blockbuster feel to it, and the devs and writers are putting more effort into the characters instead of just soldiers of fortune. The interactions feel real, and help immerse you into the game. Pretty much the only negative thing I can say about this game is because it is stuck on the 360, performance is absolutely abysmal at times, really making me wish I had another way to play. Outside of that, an enjoyable experience, I would boot up again in the future to play through some of those missions.
B
Back again with Treyarch. Now Call of Duty has made kind of a huge name for itself with the success of Modern Warfare. A WW2 game was natural at this point, and people weren’t too upset with no modern combat for the 2009 release. This time, war was brutal, showing a different side of story telling, and the first time seeing the stories of the US in the pacific theater in a CoD campaign.
If the other games in the series felt like hero stories, World at War felt like a revenge plot. Everything about this game screamed anger. Metal music, limbs blowing off, cursing - it was really going for the horrors of war, but in a “hell yeah” sort of way. I thought the switch in the sentiment to be a welcome one for sure, but it feels a little less cool when the awesome metal is to mowing down a bunch of people violently as opposed to aliens or monsters other games with this similar tone use. World at War was meant to be a look into the awful side of war, and largely they nail that, but you are doing the crimes instead. The revenge of it all just seems to be a little less of the “its either us or them” mentality, and more of a “we hate these guys, and they are sub human animals who deserve to be brutally murdered” - at least that’s the vibe I got from the American portion of the story. The Russians, still a revenge plot, felt more like a clear guided revenge story line, of which I would relate to a little more.
In the Russian campaign, Dmitri, your player character, keeps barely escaping death only to continuously meet Reznov (yes that Reznov) and following him in his campaign to drive the Germans out of Russia, and all the way back to Berlin. This was more of the heroic story I had gotten accustomed to over the past few games, however the sentiment here was still very anger and revenge forward. Everyone was mad the Germans even thought of pushing to Russia, and it was going to be the downfall of the Nazis, or death trying.
My time with this campaign was probably one of the least memorable if Im being honest. A lot of the American side was running through non descriptive jungles, blowing out foxholes with your flamethrower, and a set piece of defending an area while using artillery for back up. On the Russian side, we basically reiterated with Russian campaign in CoD1 - defend Stalingrad, progress through Poland, take the Reichstag and put the flag on the top. A great way to tell the story, but outside of having good interactions with Reznov, it was a story Ive already heard. On top of some recycled story, or so it felt, I had a decent amount of frustration with the American side, because the Japanese threw SO, MANY, GODDAMN, GRENADES. However, this game did introduce Nazi Zombies to the world, which really was so innovative for the time. That was an awesome way to end this game.
B-
If World at War depicted the revenge and brutality of war from the players perspective, WWII depicts the fear war evokes. Gone are the times of hero stories, now you, as a fresh recruit, are thrown into this hell on earth, experiencing some of the most traumatic days humanity has ever seen. I was being setup for a potential favorite I didn’t even know I was going to have.
The first few minutes of the campaign, you get that good ole Band of Brothers interaction. The guys are shooting the shit before the deployment, riffing against each other and establishing the characters you would get to know over time. The very next day is the Normandy invasion - D-Day. Now we’ve gotten D-Day before, doors open up, your friends are torn to shreds by the machine guns, you ascend to the bunkers and mission accomplished. At least that’s what I was expecting, until you are just in the boat writing a letter to you girl, helping a friend lite a cigarette, when he is shot right in front of you, starting the fear. You instinctively crouch in the boat with all of your squad while bullets whiz overhead. The ramps drop, and you know the rest. The sound mutes out, all the men are screaming, the bullets flying from every direction and the sound design makes it even scarier. You barely survived, and the game wanted you to know that. Up the beach further, you are responsible for using a “bangalore” to blow up an embankment so the troops can progress, having just been scared to nearly death, your character is fumbling with the primer, while your friends encourage you with affirmations of “you can do this”. The wall blows up, you secure the bunkers, and suddenly it’s over you are moving onto your next objective. Illustrating to me how horrible war can be, just for it to be over in a blink of an eye and have to just move on like nothing happened.
The story takes a newer approach, where instead of multiple characters it places you in the shoes of Daniels, a Texas country boy seeing his first tour of action. The plot follows essentially the US involvement in the European campaign, and has you invading normandy, securing the French countryside and hill 400, moving to help secure secret documents in Paris with the French resistance, upwards to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally ending with crossing the Rhine into Germany. It was a natural progression of events, and sticking with one group of characters really helped you get attached to all the guys in your squad. There was huge tension between 2 of your commanding officers Turner and Pierson, which landed the squad into less than ideal circumstances more than once. A believable power struggle between duty, and morality which I really enjoyed. Despite being a relatively simple war plot, no crazy ideas means that execution can be well thought out, and the execution of the technical areas of the game is what really immersed me in the experience.
Art and sound are very important to me when it comes to how immersed I can get in a game. While a game doesn’t have to be a technical masterpiece, a solid art foundation can overrule missing things like dynamic lightning, subsurface scattering, lower resolution textures and what not. WWII is a good looking game, not because it is the most technically impressive game of 2017 (that would probably go to a racing game or something where that photorealism matters more), but because of a solid identity in art. It takes a little exaggeration of colors and world, to give everything that Saving Private Ryan look. Heavy vignettes, deep blue filters, harsh sun glare, and film grain all affect the look of the art, and solidify this entry as one of the best looking CoDs Ive played. On top of excellent use of post processing effects, the sound design - omg the sound design. This finally took a page out of battlefields book with sounds that blow out your eardrums nearly. Deep booming explosions that muffle your hearing. Bullets popping by you really makes you feel like putting your head down in real life, not to mention music where it matters. Instead of hearing a bombastic soundtrack, you get those moments of war - silent, with nothing but bullets and screams. Horrifying and brutal, making the set pieces stand out even more.
When an action game does a set piece, it’s normally a culmination of an event resulting in a massive moment that basically gives the game its identity. Think Uncharted 2 which was defined by the Train Crash, Modern Warfare 2 defined by its notorious No Russian mission, or the original Halo with driving through the Pillar of Autumn. To me, as special as Uncharted 2 is for its Train crash, WWII really gives it a run for its money with its version. Not only was the crash NOT supposed to happen, much like Uncharted, the moments leading up to its crash were all included in a dynamic set piece. You were working with the French resistance to capture a armored train carrying V2 rockets, you chase after said train while having control over the jeep you are in, switching seats with Zussman to shoot germans approaching to defend their precious cargo, back and forth, trying to reach the locomotive. You shoot at the train to get rid of guards on the inside, but the armored trains own guns shoot you off course and cause you to careen right into the tracks in front of the train. After narrowly escaping, the train swallows the jeep and begins to derail. Remember those V2 rockets? Yeah, not only a derailment, but a massive explosion as the train destroys a nearby station and crashes all around you. You are just sitting by watching the whole thing unfold, and it was awesome. I just remember thinking to myself, “how fucking long is this train?”, does it matter if it was realistic? No. Was it awesome? Absolutely.
WWII can basically be summed up as someone’s passion project for wanting to really bring that feeling of the great war to life. This really felt like someone in the studio really cared about the project and it shined all the way through for me. The characters and story were memorable, albeit simple. The atmosphere, sound, and music all fit right in its place, and felt intentional, rewarding big moments with big sound and atmosphere. The gunplay is Call of Duty, of course that’s solid. There really just wasnt all that much bad to say about WWII - of the things I could gripe over aren’t even worth writing down because I enjoyed it so much. I think if the original developers of the first game wanted to make a Call of Duty 15 years later with new technology, this would be what they would have made.
A
I was coming from a real high after finishing WWII, I wanted Vanguard to be a continuation of that since in my experience of playing these games, Sledgehammer had really been proving themselves as outstanding developers. Unfortunately I left Vanguard feeling dissappointed. I think the overall package was really lack luster compared to other entries around this time. Were the CoD studios perhaps getting too big? Was it external factors like the pandemic? Or was it corporate oversight leading to scope creep and a less than stellar product? Maybe, a combination of all 3.
Now Vanguard isn’t a bad game by any means, but there were multiple instances that really made me question the decisions and direction of the studio at the time of play. I think one of the biggest things for me, instead of telling war stories, Vanguard goes for a James Gunn-esque casting of a rag tag assembled group of soldiers that were hand picked into this super serious team, for this super serious mission, against a very serious Mr. Evil Bad Guy™ - and it just felt so tonally removed from the games of the past I was honestly in shock. When I play a war game, I want 1 of 2 things. Either it’s a group of highly trained specops soldiers that team up with other operations around the globe (e.g. Modern Warfare series), or its a group of guys working together to progress despite all odds against them (e.g. classic WW2 games). This felt like a super hero movie set in WWII. I did like the way the story was structured, where your first mission you are charging through with the team to infiltrate a base containing a secret weapon, and are captured in the process. From there, the game unfolds how each individual was selected due to their unique heroics during the war, Arthur for his leadership and quick thinking, Wade for his piloting and recon skills, Polina and her glorious sniper, and Riggs with his destructive tone and abilities. It was a good team, and the writing was good - I really just felt you could take these characters, plop them into an avengers film, and it would essentially be the same story. Was it poorly done? No, not at all, but it was something tonally that I didn’t like, even if I ended up coming around on the story after originally having a negative feeling.
Separate from the weird story, the game itself felt like less care was taken overall by the development team. Now this did come out in 2021, right in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I know some weird mistakes and choices were made at my work as a developer, and Im certain similar things happened here during the development of this game. Shortcuts were made, and it shows. The sound was more flat, there was less dynamic range, and less effects on the sound, where compared to Sledgehammers previous WWII, made the game feel less weighty. The art is more post process reliant rather than actually asset. Huge efforts into shadows, and the new raytracing modes, but actually texture fidelity is much worse than even entries from 10 years ago. Huge efforts into reducing graphical overhead in an attempt to put the game out to as many consoles as possible, and with the Xbox One and PS4 generation behind at this point, the games around this time really, really sucked for even putting development time into those platforms still. Another blunder I feel was caused by so much corporate oversight, what I am calling now the Warzone-ification of all modern Call of Duty games post MW19. Every game now uses the same exact engine, the same exact sound, the same exact graphics, and the same exact animations, because why? It saves money. LAME. I want my games to feel and play similar yes, but god can we please stop adding mechanics into these games just for the sake of, “it’s like this in warzone”. I don’t want to play warzone, I want to play a Call of Duty campaign like when this series was known for its campaigns. Sadly, I think those days are now gone, and the people left playing these games year after year, are the people who don’t even touch the campaign, and don’t want to be reminded to use their brain when playing something. A game designed to turn your brain off, and complain about the multiplayer, and not have fun and enjoy a campaign that may potentially ask you to think.
Overall, there are a slew of good moments here wrapped up in a poorly done product. There are bits here that would have been really good isolated away from the rest of the distractions of the game. The midway sections were quite memorable, introducing the idea of the colored troop units that was shy’d away from in other war games, and was tastefully done. The gameplay felt good, but of course it does, it’s Call of Duty, that’s where they put all their effort into. And that is what the game felt like, like the studio put all the effort into the gameplay mechanics and everything else, sound, music, vibe, story, graphics, all secondary. All to chase a target that was set by someone 100 people up the chain to that the game is nearly identical in every way to the entry before it. A product that feels corporate, and a product that left me a little dissatisfied.
C