Call of Duty's Identity Crisis

Since Call of Duty: WWII was released last week, I have spent majority of my gaming time playing it. In September I wrote a piece outlining my thoughts on the beta and how they could improve. After playing some online matches, it became clear that Sledgehammer was not messing around when they said they were “returning COD to its roots.” However, it has not escaped being infected by contemporary gaming trends that have left WWII suffering from an identity crisis.

   

The campaign certainly feels like a throw back to the heyday of WWII shooters. They even ditched automatic health regeneration that has become a staple for the series and replaced it with heal packs as the only way to heal, something I have not experienced since the Xbox and PS2 days. The story is mediocre, but I was not expecting something new and exciting from a WWII time period that has been sucked dry of any new narrative. The campaign feels like an afterthought, almost like they included it because it was expected, instead of the studio actually wanting it.

Regardless, the strength of Call of Duty has always been its multiplayer experience. I am and forever will be a sucker for team deathmatch. It is my favorite part of COD and it is where I spend most of my time playing. So, I was especially excited that WWII ditched all the silly jetpack, exo-skeleton boosting and wall running that has polluted the game in recent years. There is still weapon balancing issues and you can be killed by a shovel in one hit but multiple bullets to the chest is not as effective. In many ways it delivers that classic COD gameplay that has been absent since Call of Duty: Ghosts. However, new additions have further deteriorated a game that was supposed to reinvigorate the franchise.

One of the worst of these additions is Divisions. I wrote about how strange it was after playing the beta and I still do not understand why they implemented this mechanic. Unfortunately, this is not the only addition that falls flat on its face. Sledgehammer Games decided to hop on the in-game currency and loot crate band wagon by incorporating these annoying features into COD. They have also created a forced online social space like the Tower in Destiny, but it does not work properly and feels like walking in a ghost town with no other players in sight. Countless emblems, banners, emotes, gun camo, reticles and even emblems for just the grip of your gun, why? All of this new and unnecessary bloat in a game that was supposed to return COD to its roots makes no sense to me.

Quite obviously, Call of Duty: WWII suffers from an identity crisis. The developers have tried to bring back the classic feel of older titles while simultaneously adding a host of new features, but this has only made things worse. Players were not asking for a revamped class system, a banner of cats with guns or a pistol grip with a Soviet bear on it. All they wanted was a game that promised to rejuvenate the franchise and bring back the classic COD experience, without the unnecessary junk that neglects what made the game great in the first place.