Call of Duty: WWII E3 Preview

The Call of Duty series began as a World War II shooter, and after spending time both in the present and the future it is returning to its roots. One of the signature features of those first Call of Duty games was the intense campaigns, they were filled with intense and memorable battles that I can still remember today. Call of Duty: WWII will be looking to create those kind of memories as well, taking advantage of a decade's worth of advances in technology to recreate the intensity of World War II combat at a level that couldn't be done before.

The Call of Duty: WWII single player campaign is the story of the US 1st Army, the Big Red One. This unit was at the forefront of the liberation of Europe, hitting the beaches at Normandy, driving across France, pushing back the Third Reich's desperate final major counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge, and breaching the Siegfried Line and crossing the Rhine into Germany. COD: WWII's campaign missions will be drawn from all of these actions and more, as you'll be playing as more than one person as you make your way through the campaign as the roles played by the men of the 1st Army in World War II were very diverse. You'll even get to see some action as a part of other units that aided the 1st Army during the war such as the French Resistance, and some of these missions will also represent a first for the series, the opportunity to play as a female combatant during the campaign.

The game's developers are focused on doing more than taking the same sort of Call of Duty game that we've seen over the past few years and plopping it down in World War II. Extensive research was done into the weapons of the war, and what they've learned is reflected in the weapons you'll be using in the campaign. The rate of fire will be slower and the reload times longer than the weapons in recent Call of Duty games, which means that you'll need to be more judicious in your approach to combat. You won't be able to overwhelm enemies with pure firepower, so you'll have to pick your shots more carefully, both to conserve ammo and to make sure that you make every shot count.

Another reason why you'll need to be more cautious in Call of Duty: World War II is that the game is bringing back the health pack. When you're injured, you'll no longer be able to pause behind cover for a few seconds and then move on again at full health. This was not done as a throwback to shooters of old, but was a conscious design decision by the developers. The use of health packs will force players to be more cautious and in turn create an experience that more closely matches the battles of World War II than modern or futuristic battles.

Your primary source of health packs will be your squad's medic, just as you'll need to rely on another squad member for ammo. Again, the squad mechanic if done to recreate a more World War II like experience. Lone wolves didn't last long and neither will you if you leave your squad behind.

That's what I was able to learn from the E3 hands-off demo. We'll bring you more information on Call of Duty: World War II's campaign mode as it becomes available.