Call of Duty: World at War

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: World at War had sold 15.7 million copies by November 2013. That total belongs to a World War II shooter made by the studio Treyarch and released in 2008 for PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, and Wii. Its campaign sent players to the Pacific and across the Eastern Front. Yet its most lasting export was not the campaign at all. A fan-favorite mode born here went on to shape what Treyarch built for years afterward. How did the team make a war from eight decades ago feel so brutal? Who were the two privates at the center of the story? And how did one extra mode turn into a franchise tradition?

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• 2. Pacific Marines

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  In August 1942, Private C. Miller of the 1st Marine Division is a prisoner on Makin Island, forced to watch the Imperial Japanese Army torture and execute his squad. A squad of Marine Raiders rescues him. It is led by Corporal Roebuck, voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, and Sergeant Tom Sullivan, played by Chris Fries. Together they storm Japanese positions across the island.

  In September 1944, the squad lands at Peleliu, now joined by Private Polonsky, played by Aaron Stanford. They break through the Japanese lines on the beach, but Sullivan is fatally stabbed. Roebuck takes over as sergeant. The squad then works through mortar pits and clears a naval artillery post, which lets American ships advance. Peleliu eventually falls into American hands.

  April 1945 brings a change of perspective. U.S. Navy Petty Officer Locke flies a PBY Catalina near a Fifth Fleet taskforce under attack during Operation Ten-Go. His crew rescues American sailors while fighting off torpedo boats and Zeroes. When the damaged Catalina runs out of ammunition, a squadron of Vought F4U-1Cs drives the Zeroes away.

  In May 1945, Miller's squad assaults a Japanese position on Okinawa and pushes on to Shuri Castle. Several Japanese soldiers there seem to surrender. They reveal concealed grenades when Roebuck and Polonsky try to search them. Miller must choose which of the two to save. The survivor hands Miller the dog tags of the man who died. With the castle taken, the last bastion of Japanese resistance on Okinawa is gone.

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• 3. Stalingrad to Berlin

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  In September 1942, Private Dimitri Petrenko of the 62nd Army wakes in a fountain filled with corpses and wounded men during the Battle of Stalingrad. German troops are executing his comrades nearby. An injured Sergeant Viktor Reznov, voiced by Gary Oldman, recruits him for a mission. Their target is the German General Heinrich Amsel, who is blamed for war crimes across the Soviet Union.

  The hunt gathers other Soviet soldiers, who attack Amsel's position. Dimitri and Reznov cover the assault from overwatch and assassinate Amsel as he tries to escape. Their position is discovered, so the two flee into the Volga.

  In April 1945, at the Battle of the Seelow Heights, the advancing 3rd Shock Army rescues a captured Dimitri. Reznov is with them, along with Private Chernov, voiced by Craig Houston. Chernov is reluctant to feel the wrath toward the enemy that Reznov demands. The group fights through German positions and drives a T-34-85 tank before boarding a train to Berlin.

  Inside the city, they advance through a Berlin U-Bahn station and its tunnels. The defenders flood the tunnels to drown them. Reznov drags Dimitri out, and they join the Red Army's push toward the Reichstag. At its entrance, a flamethrower burns Chernov, and he is left to die.

  On the rooftop, a German soldier shoots Dimitri, and Reznov kills him with a machete. Though wounded, Dimitri plants the Soviet flag, which signals victory and ends the war in Europe. Characters from this campaign would return in the sequel, Call of Duty: Black Ops, in 2010.

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• 4. Rules of Engagement

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  Thirteen hidden death cards wait in the campaign, each a playing card attached to a makeshift war grave. There is one in every level except those played entirely from vehicles. Collecting them unlocks cheats for Co-op mode, including reduced enemy endurance and a "paintball mode".

  The campaign itself is open-ended, offering several ways to finish each objective, and it carries more mature themes than earlier entries. AI-controlled teammates provide cover fire, shoot enemies, and clear rooms. A player may carry only two weapons plus hand grenades. Fallen soldiers' weapons can replace them, and some guns carry rifle grenades, telescopic sights, or bayonets.

  Standing, crouching, and prone stances each change movement speed, accuracy, and stealth. There are no armor or health pickups. Taking damage makes the screen edges glow red and the character's heartbeat quicken. Staying out of fire restores health after a short time. A marker shows the direction of a live grenade, so the player can flee or throw it back.

  Multiplayer follows the pattern set by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, with the same style of ranking and perks. There are six modes, including Team Deathmatch and capture the flag. Three killstreak rewards arrive at 3, 5, and 7 kills: a recon plane that reveals opponents on the mini-map, an artillery strike, and attack dogs. For the first time in the franchise, co-op allows two players on split-screen or four online. On the Wii, two players instead share one screen and one point of view in squadmate co-op.

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• 5. Fire and Echoes

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  Activision announced the game on the 23rd of June 2008, and it took about two years to make. That was twice as long as Treyarch's previous entry, Call of Duty 3. The team built on an improved version of the Call of Duty 4 engine and reworked its physics. More of each environment could be destroyed, and the flamethrower's fire spread from surface to surface. Characters now suffered dismemberment, along with realistic burning of skin and clothes.

  Other studios joined the effort. Exakt Entertainment helped bring the game to the Wii. Arkane Studios built multiplayer levels under the direction of the Austin studio Certain Affinity. For motion capture, the team constructed a full-sized replica of a PBY Catalina. Modding tools soon followed, so players could download the same kit used for other games in the series.

  Sean Murray composed the music, having worked with Treyarch audio director Brian Tuey on True Crime: New York City. Adam Levenson, Activision's audio director, also helped. Murray wanted the score to be more fun and intense, with "a specific musical path that follows the psyche of the gameplay".

  Sound technology mattered as much as music. A system called occlusion muffled sounds according to what stood in their path, so a thick wall deadened noise more than a thin one. For the first time in the series, players could tell footsteps beside them from footsteps above or below.

  A second system, Flux, began in the desert. The crew placed microphones 60 yards in front of and 60 yards behind a weapon to measure how World War II guns echoed off the mountains. The studio then recreated those reflections in software, letting players pinpoint a sniper shot by its echo.

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• 6. The Undead Mode

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  The first Zombies map, "Nacht der Untoten", launches on its own after the final campaign mission. This minigame appears only in the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows versions. One to four players face unlimited waves of Nazi zombies, armed at first with only an M1911 pistol. Points come from killing zombies and repairing barricades over boarded-up windows. Players spend those points to open new areas and buy weapons and upgrades. A downed player must be revived within a set time, and if everyone falls, the game ends.

  Downloadable maps expanded the mode. On the 19th of March 2009, Map Pack 1 added "Zombie Verrückt", meaning "zombie crazy". It is based on the asylum from the campaign mission Ring of Steel. A power generator there activates "Perk-a-Cola" machines, soda-themed upgrades that appeared in nearly every later Treyarch Zombies map. The pack also brought three multiplayer maps and sold over 1 million copies in its first week, an Xbox Live record.

  Map Pack 2 arrived on the 11th of June 2009 with "Shi No Numa", or "swamp of death". It is set in a misty swamp in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies, and its enemies include undead soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. It introduced flaming hellhounds and the Wunderwaffe DG-2 weapon. It also added four playable characters: Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, Edward Richtofen, and Takeo Masaki. All four returned in later Treyarch maps.

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• 7. Other Versions

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  On the 11th of November 2008, the Nintendo DS version arrived in North America, with Europe following three days later. Developer n-Space used the same engine as its earlier Call of Duty 4 game. It offered American, British, and Soviet campaigns and online play for up to four players. Touch-screen tasks included defusing mines and sending Morse code. A tank mode let players turn the main gun and fire machine gun rounds at once. Its flamethrower, though, was drawn with 2D sprites.

  The PlayStation 2 release, Final Fronts, was developed by Rebellion Developments and differs sharply from the main game. It has 13 missions across three campaigns. Miller returns, but he now serves in the 2nd Marines Division. Lucas Gibson of the American 80th Infantry Division fights in Luxembourg and Austria. Pvt. Tom Sharpe of the British 6th Airborne drives the advance on the Rhine River. The tank mission is on-rails, played as a gunner named Alex, and there is no online play or Zombies.

  A Windows Mobile version, built by Glu Mobile, was a run-and-gun game closer to Capcom's Commando than to a first-person shooter. It had its own storyline and characters.

  On the 16th of November 2009, Call of Duty: World at War Zombies reached the iPhone and iPod Touch. It featured Nacht der Untoten, Shi No Numa, and Der Riese, plus a downloadable Zombie Verrückt. An HD iPad version followed in 2010, with Zombie Verrückt free but without Shi No Numa and Der Riese. The game was removed from the app store in 2018.

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• 8. Reception and Legacy

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  Metacritic summarized the critical response as "generally favorable". GameSpot said the return to World War II "achieves greatness but falls short of excellence." IGN called it a "solid, confident shooter with plenty to offer the casual and hardcore alike." IGN also applauded the Pacific setting and the new co-op mode, and said multiplayer was "definitely an area where World at War shines." Official Xbox Magazine was harsher, calling it a "play-it-safe sequel" that added "nothing noteworthy of its own."

  Critics disagreed about the violence. 1UP.com found the horror "almost too much at times" and praised the new gore as a gain in realism. IGN criticized the campaign's scope, because missions set months apart broke the flow of the story. At the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the game earned nominations for "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay".

  Sales were strong. In November 2008, the game ranked second in United States sales with over 1.41 million units. The Xbox 360 version became the sixth best-selling game of 2008, selling in excess of 2.75 million copies. In the United Kingdom, it doubled the first-week PS3 and Xbox 360 sales of Modern Warfare. It became the third fastest-selling game there, behind Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. ELSPA gave the Xbox 360 version a "Double Platinum" award for at least 600,000 copies, and the PlayStation 3 version a "Platinum" award for at least 300,000.

  Later critics were kinder. Rankings of the series generally place it in the top ten. NME praised its scares, calling it surprisingly good at being scary, though it found the high difficulty frustrating. Seth Parmer of TheGamer wrote that the Zombies mode "birthed an entire storyline and fanbase due to how downright fun and replayable it was."

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