Call of Duty: World at War goes back to World War II

by Andrew Yoon { Jun 9th 2008 at 9:52AM }

Those that had their hesitations about the upcoming Call of Duty may have their fears confirmed by this month's OXM (UK) magazine. The magazine reveals Call of Duty: World at War, which is developed by CoD3 vets Treyarch ... and once again takes place in WWII.

The critically acclaimed Call of Duty 4 was developed by Infinity Ward, and took place in the present day. The dark story and compelling multiplayer made it one of the best offerings of last year (and PS3 Fanboy's Game of the Year). Treyarch plans on "explor[ing] the darkest corners of WWII," by "tackling darker themes" and pitting players against a "new, seemingly alien fighting force." (The Chimera, perhaps?)

[Via Joystiq]

Tags: call-of-duty, call-of-duty-5, treyarch

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

JoJo @ Jun 9th 2008 9:56AM

I hope this game's online will be mucher better then COD4.
Though COD4 was the SHIZZLES.

CJ861161 @ Jun 22nd 2008 1:41PM

It's supposed to have a co-op multiplayer.

SuperGayParade @ Jun 9th 2008 9:57AM

and the cycle of good and suck repeats itself again!

MouseyC @ Jun 9th 2008 10:04AM

Although i didn't like CoD4 it was nice to see them pull the series out of WWII for a change.

"new, seemingly alien fighting force." They make it sound a lot like resistance, "seeming alien"? Zombies perhaps?

Gaucho @ Jun 9th 2008 10:08AM

Call of Duty 5: Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Rick @ Jun 9th 2008 10:10AM

umm... aliens/zombies? Pass.

Wasn't one of the hallmarks of the COD series realism? Who thought it would be a good idea to abandon that?

maximumfear @ Jun 9th 2008 10:33AM

Its not aliens/zombies or any other alien type bad guys. The seemingly alien force in in fact the Imperial Japanese military. The OXM article makes it clear, I made re-iterated the point in my article on the site (the one the this article links to). Don't jump to conclusions guys.

They are described as seemingly alien because of the fact that during WWII the Japanese totally surprised and shocked the US forces with their tactics and tenacity. The US and Europe had never fought anybody like the Japanese who didn't fight to the same rule book as everyone else.

So not aliens, just scary and vicious Imperial Japanese

krzyphlly @ Jun 9th 2008 10:37AM

Umm... Alien as in different, out of the ordinary... as in maybe more Asian Theatre... Like jungles and stuff... LOL, Aliens, what next, when they say they want to explore different ways the enemy will hunt us you'll think "Call of Duty X: Alien vs Predator" ??

Moe @ Jun 9th 2008 10:30AM

The alien force is the Japanese....its in the full article.

Gaucho @ Jun 9th 2008 10:32AM

Now you have to fight the S.S. and the space Nazis. Lets just hope that the dreaded Nazi ghosts don't get involved.

koehler83 @ Jun 9th 2008 10:34AM

Resistance: Fall of Duty?

This is such epic fail.

Mein Bratwurst @ Jun 9th 2008 4:28PM

Indeed.

The Fail is strong with this one.

Treyarch shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Call of Duty franchise.

drdre74 @ Jun 9th 2008 10:36AM

they can keep it. I'll wait on COD5 when Infinity Ward gets back on it. WW2 games suck ass and are played out like a high top fade!

Chris @ Jun 9th 2008 10:37AM

Treyarch did CoD 3, not 2 btw. One good thing is that they are putting in coop for this one. That's a big selling point for me -

Paul Clayton @ Jun 9th 2008 10:38AM

"which is developed by CoD2 vets Treyarch" not quite they did CoD3. Cod2 was developed by Infinity ward (who did CoD4)

Deathalo @ Jun 9th 2008 10:39AM

Andrew, CoD2 was developed by Infinity Ward as was the first one, CoD3 however was developed by Treyarch. An easy way to remember this is CoD, CoD2, and CoD4 all got great scores averaging in the 9s and were developed by Infinity Ward. The Treyarch developed CoD3 however did not fair as well among critics.

-DH

Andrew Yoon @ Jun 9th 2008 11:06AM

Yeah, I meant to type CoD3. It was corrected.

kentuckyfried @ Jun 9th 2008 2:21PM

COD3 got panned b/c it was too similar to COD2.

however this is like saying that there will be only a finite number of remakes possible before all war and battle scenarios are exhausted...I'm sure if they did Modern Warfare over, it might get boring really fast. Then again, *if* they include some of the features and address all problems Infinity Ward never bothered fixing on the ps3, there's also a good chance the game could still do very well. It's just that eventually this franchise could go the way of sports titles, where people wonder, "why do I keep buying this thing year after year after year?"

nkruzer @ Jun 9th 2008 10:43AM

this sounds like the worst idea ever

Byron517 @ Jun 9th 2008 10:58AM

This is retarded!! Is Activision blind or stupid!! Maybe both!! WHY OH WHY would you move development from Infinity Ward when proven time over time they are the superior development crew!!! FOR PETE SAKES WWII AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! I quit.. I'm passing on this one..

roosel @ Jun 9th 2008 11:02AM

remember when everyone was hating on COD4 when it was great... maybe history will repeat??

Fraser JK @ Jun 9th 2008 11:05AM

Unless it totally kicks ass, like never before... I won't be buying it!

Livi70590 @ Jun 9th 2008 11:18AM

Call of Duty = meh.

Battlefield = Fantastic.

Cory @ Jun 9th 2008 11:23AM

Here's the sad truth like all the Call of Duty's it will sell great just because of the name on the box. The average gamer doesn't realize the difference between Treyarch and Infinity Ward, all they know is that the yare getting CoD4's sequel. it's after the fact they realized the game sucks.

Atarikid @ Jun 9th 2008 11:28AM

Cod3 sucked major times when looking at the frame rate and screentearing. Very probably we are going to see yett another game with bad framerates and screentearing.

monkeywithnoeyes @ Jun 9th 2008 2:07PM

Only on the ps3, the frame rate was fine on the 360. Apparently the 360's the lead platform again for 5 so how it will do on the ps3 is anyones guess.

Ty @ Jun 9th 2008 11:38AM

Why does TreyArch even make video games...

Riley Freeman @ Jun 9th 2008 11:40AM

whaat happened to if it aint broke dont fix it ?

Semi @ Jun 9th 2008 11:50AM

getting sick of these stupid alien shoot em ups..
crysis was a cool game til they got the stupid alien crap...

koehler83 @ Jun 9th 2008 12:28PM

It's probably not going to be literally humans vs. aliens.. that would be too much of a rip off of Resistance.

My guess is that the Nazis unconvered alien technology and have been exploiting it against the Allies. Hellboy style basically. Still not very original.

Maybe they'll switch it up and have the Americans exploiting alien technology from Roswell (even though chronologically that would be bunk too).

These are not GOOD idea btw.. just my guess as to TreyArch's ideas.

balaam @ Jun 9th 2008 12:30PM

Words cannot express the epicness of this fail

jrlcgmx @ Jun 9th 2008 12:42PM

What a noobs! Boooring.. WWII fetish again! *throws up*

Popfrogs @ Jun 9th 2008 12:44PM

What a shame. "Just when you thought the fad was over, just when you thought a trend had died...TreyArch proves they can do nothing but make WW2 games!"

Nick @ Jun 9th 2008 2:03PM

You'd think they would continue with the COD4 formula since it sold so incredibly well. At least it won't be in Europe this time, but I still don't think it will be able to top COD4.

uh-oh polio @ Jun 9th 2008 2:36PM

Im very curious to see how this will turn out. I thought cod3 was a good game for when it was released and have no problems with it so i cant join the whole "its sucks" movement. However i can see how the Japanese can be an alien experience like what if you kill someone half way and then when you go to kill them they pull out a nade and pull the pin while holding it to try and kill you too. As anyone who has an idea of how they fought would agree. Id also like to see ambushes and stuff to but with a great AI. But to battle that problem i usually play on hard settings as to not bore me. Anyways i can see some great possibilities with this game if done right. Ill have to see some reviews first but id imagine me getting this as im a sucker for the COD franchise ever since the 1st one.

so thats my $0.02

anyone agree?

basil ghazi @ Jun 10th 2008 6:56PM

I 'M WITH U ON THIS ONE WORD BY WORD !!!!!!BONZAII!!!!!!

KUV1977 @ Jun 9th 2008 2:47PM

Actually, i think, that it doesn't look and sound too bad. They acknowledge that 3 wasn't that good because they had to rush it (marketing excuse maybe). Now they have twice the time and a good engine to build upon. They have improved the physics and added swimming and underwater-movement...

http://nathybabe.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/1st-page.jpg
http://nathybabe.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/2nd-page.jpg
http://nathybabe.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/3rd-page.jpg
http://nathybabe.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/4th-page.jpghttp://nathybabe.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/5th-page.jpg

SimbaDogg @ Jun 9th 2008 2:56PM

anyone who is even considering this game...well, i have some pogs, skip its, kazoos and parachute pants that i can sell you that are equally played out.

KUV1977 @ Jun 9th 2008 3:23PM

Im not necessarily a fan of FPS... WW2 especially. But someone saying that WW2-FPS-Games are 'played out' should argue the same, whenever a new Gran Turismo or any other racing game comes out... also you should never ever go to the movies unless something comes out that you have never seen before (as i said never ever).

You can have the same setting and still tell a good story or make a great game out of it... give them at least a chance... tear them apart as hard as you want once you played the final product.

Popfrogs @ Jun 9th 2008 4:10PM

Let's see you say this after they release Band of Brothers volumes 16 through 950 over the next decade.

Hollywood and gaming have trends, and they usually burn out in a few years. Hollywood learned that WW2 movies/shows are done, but evidently TreyArch disagrees.

Your analogy to GT5 fails because racing is a *genre* not a trend. Now, if you were to say there are too many stunt car simulators, you'd be closer to the mark.

KUV1977 @ Jun 9th 2008 5:11PM

Shooters are a genre too, and WW2-Shooters can be seen as sub-genre. The difference between GT4 and 5 are theoretically very minimal: better graphics, better physics, more cars, more tracks (that all have been driven on before)... so is a new WW2 Shooter, better graphics, better physics, more weapons, more or different maps... but at least they could! add a good story to it to make it feel a little fresh...

war movies can also be seen (and often are) as a sub-genre of films. They don't make war-movies altogether and if they start doing them again, there will be WW2 flicks all over again... if you do a film or a game that involves 90% shooting you need a setting and those are limited (thank god)... modern setting has just been done, and if their next installment has the same time, everyone will be like, why hasn't these maps or campaign or what not come as a DLC... then they could do real aliens, then it would go like 'bad Halo-clone' or 'resistance clone'...

However, i am not saying it will be a great game, all i am saying is: 'noone knows, give them a chance'... or you could just say Killzone2 will be crap, because the first one was rated poorly and the developers didn't change...

J @ Jun 9th 2008 3:53PM

So much for COD... games developed by Treyarch aren't worth the discs they're coded on.

EPIC fucking fail.

Matt @ Jun 9th 2008 3:53PM

Ill pass. Dont really care for yet another WWII game. I think that it will hurt the franchise, honestly.

Greg Pace @ Jun 9th 2008 5:36PM

FAIL

qwerter @ Jun 9th 2008 5:56PM

The Waffen SS!!!

ballernaz @ Jun 9th 2008 9:05PM

cod 4 has passed-battlefield bad company owns because of vehicles and destructible environments-in cod, you can call in an airstrike and kill a few enimies, where as in battlefield you can get in a helicopter and keep bombing some mad l\l008z until someone shoots you down.

Brian Meneses @ Jun 9th 2008 9:41PM

Treyarch sucks. COD6 will be the next on my shopping list. 'Nuff said.

Daalyman @ Jun 9th 2008 10:34PM

Don't see a down side to this at all.
Aside from a great game cod3 was best on-line co-op.
Where two at home could get online and play, know they
say it might have 4 peeps squad to join on line at the same
time.
That's one thing i didn't like about cod4 two players at home
couldn't get on as a team on line.
I'm looking forward to this and to be able to see how much
different the style of fighting from the Japanese soldiers was.
Big plus is they will be using the same game engine as IW.
So many stories and scenarios of ww2 that even tho people
may think it's played out i don't think we have see half of
what went on.

Carney @ Jun 10th 2008 10:23AM

Seems to me that other than Soviet Strike, there has been very little done that could be done for World War III games.

We've all seen WW2 movies and played the games, and watched the documentaries, it's very familiar.

But WW3 would be new and different. You could set it in any of various dates, with various reasons. That would dictate the weapons sets available.

Narrowly tailored games would be great. You could have "Fulda Gap", a tank battle game where the top of the line Soviet and East German shock armies launch their attack. All armor and artillery stuff.

You could have "Spetsnaz", where commandoes try to take out or take over key sites behind the lines. Iceland jumps out for instance.

Submarine games in the North Atlantic. Huge air combat games, with AWACS, AAA, SAMs, and overwhelming numbers of MiGs going up against NATO craft.

And of course nukes. Each a game to itself, or one mega game.

Instead more and more WW2. Yawn.