Call of Duty: World War II is it Too Late to go Back?

Call of Duty going back to World War II or any realistic war is far overdue, but at this point is it too late for the series to return considering how far it's strayed? I've played every Call of Duty at this point, starting with CoD3 back in the day and it's been an interesting evolution. About halfway through the Modern Warfare era I had thought a really futuristic Call of Duty would be awesome, but after the last four featuring some variation on this it's just getting boring.

I really do want to go back to boots on the ground based combat that was promised with Infinite Warfare, which was a lie and hopefully this World War II is realistic. I could see some weird space type things or alternate past being thrown in, but I want this to be authentic. It would have also been preferred to see Treyarch handle this past CoD considering their history with the era at the early years in the Call of Duty franchise. That's just a thought, but I was alright with Sledgehammer's work on Advanced Warfare and their earlier work on the series. It might also be best to have this third studio get a shot at the era, perhaps doing something the other two hadn't thought of.

Call of Duty World War II Wallpaper

When it comes to it being too late, I say that in the sense of the player base. It's changed, and many gamers have moved on to other shooters to get their fix and with Battlefield 1 being stellar I'm not sure players will leave that game. Even a year later players will stick with Battlefield as DICE keeps great retention. With the veterans of the series mostly gone now, the ones that still play yearly may be large in numbers though ones that are used to this new take on the series.

Remember that the last even close to modern shooting in the franchise was 2011 with Modern Warfare 3 and the last World War II game in the series was World at War in 2008. That's a long time and while we were getting sick of authentic old wars then, it's been too long and we need a better mix of what is available. I'm not saying that World War II needs to saturate the market again, but there needs to be a balance like they keep claiming is possible with the Force. Most of these active players in the last five or so years will be very used to the verticality and changed movement system. It might be too much for them to go from flying around like wild creatures to regular ground based combat. This could come across as boring to the high twitch shooting that flying around provides as combat should be significantly slower.

There also won't be as many crazy gadgets or weapons available unless they aren't aiming for authentic play and this limits the options for what can be done. I bet there will still be silly colored guns considering Activision needs to microtransactions it like crazy, but there's only so much that can be done compared to the futuristic games. This sense of balance compared to wild weapons, exo suits or whatever odd mech tools are available might be a shock to those players. Imagine having this plethora of exciting tools and then being stripped of them all except for basics, it will take some adjusting. I'm personally looking forward to seeing this series embrace its roots and can't wait to Sledgehammer's take on humanity's most impactful war.

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Gamerheadquarters Reviewer Jason Stettner