Call of Duty: WWII trailer thoughts

So, the new Call of Duty has a reveal trailer now, this should be good. I haven't done my thoughts on a trailer for a while now, and I'd usually think Call of Duty wasn't worth the effort, but things have changed. First, some set up for the main event, everyone remembers the trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and as you can see, its like to dislike ratio is a bit abysmal, in fact it's worse than the trailer for Ghostbusters, which I found astounding, since Ghostbusters, I thought, was only slightly better than the garbage pile I thought it would be. Infinite Warfare, on the other hand, is a game I think deserves less hate than it gets; sure the multiplayer was the same tired old crap, but behind that dead horse I always tend to find the campaign to be of a very high quality, always a completely serviceable little five hour romp. Despite Infinite Warfare being so Sci Fi that it wasn't really Call of Duty anymore, it still had that very high level of polish that all CoD campaigns have had, and was, in itself, a decent Sci Fi adventure. And as far as roots go, turning a war game into a Sci Fi war game makes more sense than turning a war game into cops and crooks; you might as well give them credit for trying something new with the formula. Battlefield 1 however changed the game in a way Hardline never could, opting to return to a historical war setting, and selling in huge numbers, though it still lost to Infinite Warfare. The real tragedy is that Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare both killed Titanfall 2, which is easily the best game of the three. Now following Battlefield's lead, Call of Duty is also going back to a historical war, and judging from this trailer, it's going in hard.

The trailer opens with a radio speech that, from what I could find, was read by President Roosevelt on the 6th of June 1944, the day of the Normandy landings. This is a wonderful touch, and is hopefully a subtle signifier that this Call of Duty will at least try to convey the gravity of the war with sincerity. What follows is a beach landing that looks like it was ripped straight from Saving Private Ryan, it's violent, bloody, intense, it almost looks scary; it's such a departure from the more recent, more insane and bombastic Call of Duty campaigns that I can't help but love it, it looks horrible, which is the best thing that could be said about it. That beach scene really sets the tone, this is a trailer that seemingly wants you to know that this game isn't messing around; the violence is extreme, it's in your face, yet far from being loud, it's almost subdued by the music, which, in contrast to the intense, graphic violence, is very serene. WWII immediately seems to set itself apart from CoD's recent outings by putting a focus on the soldiers in this trailer, whereas Advanced Warfare was on Kevin Spacey rambling about Democracy and US efforts at regime change, Black Ops III was on the line between soldier and weapon, and Infinite Warfare was on look, space and shit. What should be apparent is that all of these trailers have set themselves on establishing the primary element of the game's story, be it the conflict, the themes, or the characters, hopefully WWII will be the same, since this is a very personal trailer; what sticks out to me is a scene that depicts a personal conflict, as one soldier asks for the number of casualties. Death is everywhere in this trailer; soldiers are gunned down by MG nests, blown up by tanks, picked off by planes, so on, so on, it appears that the age of cyber super soldiers is very much over, and this is a very refreshing change, and weird, given how I can remember when World War Two games went out of fashion. This is also a pretty radical change to the Call of Duty series itself, which ditched World War Two a full nine years ago, which makes me ask, how will this change things, mainly in the department of gameplay, vehicles, weapons, stuff like that, being an enthusiast for more historical war technology, I'm excited. WWII looks like it's tried to keep the cinematic nature of the series, but dumped the bombastic epicness of the recent games in favour of a more grounded story with a greater focus on the men in the war; why else would it open with a Roosevelt speech, this is a return to the roots of series, like Activision said; a blend of the newer games' cinematic elements, and the older games' grittier, intimately violent representation of the war. Unlike those older games however, WWII seems entirely focused on the European side of the War, which I personally find disappointing, maybe because I recently watched Hacksaw Ridge, who knows. On the plus side however, this does mean the story can be told with a tighter focus, similar to, for example, Black Ops, which remains my favourite Call of Duty game, even now. That story will hopefully be something special, because while I've enjoyed the last few CoD campaigns, and really enjoyed certain things about them, a good example of that being Black Ops III, none of the last few CoD games have really struck me a special, in the way a Bioshock game would be, or Like Spec Ops: The Line or the Uncharted series and The Last of Us, games that hit you on a very emotional and psychological level. Maybe I'm getting my hopes up, but I hope WWII is special, I hope that its campaign can be up there with Spec Ops: The Line as a fantastic campaign. Which is where my concern lies, since weirdly, I 'm always more drawn to the Campaign than the multiplayer, in fact I barely touch the multiplayer, but that's not just CoD, that's also Halo, the exception is of course Titanfall, because that game is fucking awesome.

Call of Duty: WWII's trailer actually gives me exactly what I wanted, which is hope that Call of Duty can actually pull off the move of being more than a fun little five hour time waster, can actually be something great, that people will remember even after Call of Duty 2018 and 19, and can breathe back life into this franchise that is undeniably dying. A lot of people do want to see Call of Duty die, but to be honest, I don't think it deserves to yet, I still think there's time for the series to find it's fire again, and hopefully with WWII, it's found it, and hell yes, I'll be picking it up. And on a finishing note, people are a lot more positive about this trailer than they were for Infinite Warfare, which is a good sign.