The first title in the series to be set primarily during World War II since Call of Duty: World at War in 2008, WWII is set in the European theatre, and is centered around a squad in the 1st Infantry Division, following their battles on the Western Front; the multiplayer expands to different fronts not seen in the campaign. With amazing photo-realistic graphics and decent voice acting (especially Turner), the game also removes regenerating health and goes back to basics with gameplay reminiscent of the first Call of Duty, removing features such as double jumping. Supply Drops, however, do return from the last 3 games of the franchise. Overall, it's basically the same old gameplay from the first Call of Duty with some minor tweaks, including the same old multiplayer from the past games, except this time without regenerating health. This game was actually so bad that Sledgehammer Games killed their studios because of this game.
Every enemy soldier will find and target you instantly, but the 5-10 squadmates surrounding you will shoot at trees, rocks, and piles of mud instead of the enemy. This is terrible ally AI. Also, the hit detection is messy. Even worse is the really dumbed down gore. It's a miracle if you manage to dismember someone. The blood effects are so godawful that they make the bodies of dead soldiers look like someone dropped containers of ketchup or buckets of red paint on them or like they got sunburnt real badly.
The plot is incredibly bland, as it tries way too hard to be dramatic, but results in another cliché and poor attempt at copying Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers, Band of Brothers, Medal of Honor, and other movies and TV shows. The campaign is extremely lacking and brief, with repetitive quick time events throughout, not helped by the fact that it often emphasizes the cinematic aspect over the gameplay. Unlike the previous WW2 installments of the series, this one gives almost all the attention to the Americans. There is only one non-American protagonist, a French Resistance member Camille "Rousseau" Denis, whose is a nice way to symbolize the people of the French resistance for those who fought for their country against the Nazis. Even then she is playable only for the first half of one mission. Besides Rousseau, the game was supposed to have a mission with a British pilot as another non-American protagonist, but it got scrapped in favor of a playable segment with American dive-bomber squadron in the mission "Battle of the Bulge". It also explores WW2 partially even from the American perspective, with most of the levels being set in France, some in Germany and a couple in the Ardennes that cover the aforementioned Battle of the Bulge. What makes this even more pathetic is that there is already a game in the series about the 1st Infantry Division, a Call Of Duty 2 spin-off for sixth generation consoles titled "Big Red One", which is longer and has missions set in North Africa and Sicily besides the ones set in France (that includes Normandy), Belgium and Germany, also featuring Italian and Vichy France soldiers besides German ones.
The Nazi imagery is heavily censored. While somewhat excusable for the multiplayer, Nazi Zombies mode and campaign are also victims of this (there is still some Nazi imagery present in the campaign, such as flags and banners with swastika, but it's still heavily censored, which is noticeable with enemies like Gestapo officers, who have armbands with iron cross and lack Totenkopf and Nazi eagle symbols on their uniforms). When someone told one of the developers about this on Twitter, the developer accused said person of wanting to associate with mass murder.
Just like Advanced Warfare, it has a huge weapon variety. You can even use a claymore sword with the Wanderlust basic training! Even the camos for the guns look good! Unfortunately, the gun sounds are terrible and completely sound like something out of an airsoft gun.
What I have also noticed is that a lot of German soldiers in the D-Day mission are using Soviet weapons. While there is speculation that some Germans who defended the Atlantic walls could've used some captured or transferred Soviet weapons, because one of the units consisted of many forcibly conscripted Soviet prisoners of war, there is no evidence to support this, let alone them being used in such amounts, including PPShs. Keep in mind that the developers promised to make the campaign "historically accurate".
There are lots of Allied factions and uniforms in the multiplayer; however, despite the name, the Axis side NEVER received any additional factions in the multiplayer, leaving Germans to be the only part of it. Also, absurd customization in the multiplayer abandons a more "historically accurate" approach in favor of inclusiveness. Anyone, including Germans, can be made Asian, black and female. It can be partially excused due to the game treating multiplayer more as a playground for players with other things such as alternate skins, HUB and allowing you to wear varied uniforms (including the ones of other armies), but it still feels out of place and is not something that everyone would swallow. The pistol grips were also very unnecessary to add in the multiplayer, and were a poor implementation for customization. In fact weapon customization in the multiplayer is streamlined and boring compared to past games. Additionally, most of the maps available in the game are small sized maps that force you down three lanes. Except for maps like Gustav Cannon, which is way too big and is easy for campers to abuse.
The zombies are back, too, and this time, they look disturbing...so disturbing enough that they give Resident Evil a run for it's money! Butt he Zombies mode has its own unfortunate fair share of problems:
- The characters are bland and forgettable, with each character feeling like a copy-and-paste of one another. It's like Sledgehammer wanted to give these characters personalities like Nikolai, Dempsey, Takeo, and Richtofen, but got lazy half-way through.
- Most of the maps are tightly spaced areas with no rebuildable barriers, forcing players to play run-and-gun style.
- This mode introduced zombie loadouts, weapon customization and microtransactions (including self-revives, nukes and other powerups), removing any kind of challenge other COD Zombies had. In fact, the weapon customization in Zombies is more detailed than the customization from Multiplayer.
- Unlike Treyarch's and even Infinity Ward's zombie modes, standard zombies are all the same on every map.
- Sledgehammer tried to make this version of Zombies more horror-like, but instead it came out cliched and cheesy, despite some interesting moments.
- Abysmal and disappointing ending.
- Players aren't properly punished when they get downed, like in older COD Zombie games. Instead of losing all perks and abilities on down, they are set on a timer. That means that if they have the quick revive perk/self-revive or if a teammate is nearby, they get revived instantly and keep most - if not all - of their perks.
There's an interesting bonus: you can play 15 of Activision's Atari 2600 games inside the headquarters, paying tribute to the company's beginning (despite what many jerks are thinking of them and EA and other companies, especially if they used to be awesome).
You might actually enjoy this game as its own thing. I know I have, but then again...