World War II and video games are a lot like Westerns and Hollywood. At one stage, each setting dominated its respective medium – the industry couldn’t go six months without at least three World War II games hitting the market. By now we’ve seen most of what we can of the Second World War in video games, and we’re beginning to move on – everyone except for Treyarch that is. After series creator Infinity Ward took Call of Duty into the present with the visceral Modern Warfare, secondary developer Treyarch has decided to go back to the 40’s for one more stab with Call of Duty: World at War.

Treyarch has been vilified by the Call of Duty fan base in the past, mainly due to their rather poor efforts with the console-only entries Call of Duty: Big Red One and Call of Duty 3. Call of Duty: World at War feels like a product coming from a team that has something to prove – they want you to think of them as being able to produce a game that’s on par with the efforts of Infinity Ward. Now they don’t exactly succeed, but the result is a solid, if slightly cliché World War II experience that fails to grasp the opportunity to significantly build upon what was offered in last year’s game.


World at War is broken into two intertwining parts. The first part is the usual gung-ho American operation, this time on the Pacific Front in and around Okinawa. You play as Private Miller, a member of the US Marine Corps who was captured while scouting around the Makin Islands, and subsequently rescued by Corporal Roebuck (Kiefer Sutherland) and his men. The other half of the game involves the Red Army fighting the Nazis during the final days of the Battle of Stalingrad, and then later the eventual march onto Berlin to end the war in Europe. As Private Dimitri Petrenko, you’ll accompany Sergeant Reznov (wonderfully played by Gary Oldman) on a variety of impossible missions and sneaky incursions. There’s also a one-off mission as Petty Office Locke aboard the PBY Catalina, as you provide cover for the navy, kill a bunch of Japanese Zeroes and save a few sailors.

There’s no shying away from the atrocities of war in the game. The opening scene for each side is rather heavy, not quite as powerful as the stuff in the middle of Modern Warfare, but still pretty moving. As Private Miller, you’re stuck in a small hut with a bunch of other American prisoners, watching the Japanese officer torture one of your squadmates, first poking him in the eye with a cigar, and then slitting his throat after he refuses to talk. As the Russian, you’re on the ground, gravely injured, watching the German soldiers execute any of your countrymen that are still alive. The gore level is slightly higher than most major shooters, but still comes across as relatively tame.

Each campaign plays out much the same way; you start out weaponless, fighting against the odds and until you’ve got a foothold on the situation, then push hard towards the final goal. The tones of the campaigns contrast greatly. The American campaign portrays the enemies as monsters that will do whatever it takes to win the war, even at the cost of their own lives. The Russian campaign has more of a revenge angle, that you’re punishing the Nazi war machine for daring to enter the Motherland, and are ready to kill every last soldier.


The American campaign’s focus on the Pacific Front gives it a fresher feeling; there have been far fewer games that cover the war in the East, and very few recent movies or television shows from which the developers could pay homage to/blatantly rip off. The landscapes are open, but thick with vegetation that hides Japanese soldiers. The Rising Sun army loves setting up traps and ambushes, so players need to be on their guard. It can seem a little cheap and tacky when they seemingly spawn out of nowhere, but the new flamethrower lets you torch the surrounding flora and any Japanese soldiers hiding within. They’re not afraid to charge you down and stick you with their bayonets either – sometimes the charging soldiers are too thick and fast that you run out of bullets and get stuck in a life and death struggle; a button press at the right time will help you divert the charging blade and plunge your own into the soldier’s neck.

Playing as the Ruskies is more closely aligned to previous World War II video games, and despite the overwhelming sense of familiarity, it comes across as being the better campaign. The Soviet campaign features darker, richer characters, action sequences which demand more from the player, and some really cool set pieces. It does tread shaky ground by revisiting the Battle of Stalingrad, which has already featured twice in the series, but makes up for it with the march into Germany, including the final strike at the heart of the Third Reich with the storming of the Reichstag at the end of the war.

World at War’s campaign will take a maximum of about six hours, but it makes up for that with a wealth of multiplayer content. The campaign can be played cooperatively, with two players via split screen and four players online. The more players you have involved, the more enemies the game will throw at you. World at War takes a few notes from Halo 3’s campaign meta game, allowing you to turn on scoring, or collect the hidden death cards, which have a similar affect to the skulls from Bungie’s game. If the campaign’s not your thing, you can participate in the game’s zombie survival mode, which puts you and three friends against a never-ending wave of Nazi zombies. You’ll be stuck in a small house with limited weapons and ammo and a barricade which constantly takes a beating at the hands of your attackers. The game inevitably ends in death, but it can be a real blast while it lasts.


The competitive multiplayer modes don’t stray too far from what was introduced in Modern Warfare. Now Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer system was excellent, but with an extra year, one would think that Treyarch could have done a little more to build on what was established last November. Players are treated to experience points based on how they play in each match. These experience points can then be exchanged for perks, which let you increase your health and speed and such, new weapons, new maps or new game types. Most of the game modes have been given slight tweaks to make them gel better with the World War II setting, while the Capture the Flag game mode missing from Modern Warfare has been reintroduced.

Call of Duty: World at War sticks closely to the formula that made Modern Warfare such a big success. In doing so, Treyarch has added very little to the game – it almost feels like Modern Warfare with a World War II theme plastered over the front. Given that people have been playing Call of Duty 4 obsessively for the last twelve months, World at War doesn’t really strike with the same impact. There’s a good game here and a couple of new toys, but many players may feel that they’re just running through motions again in a different era.