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Call of Duty: WWII competitive analysis
CoD’s time warp back to WWII greatly impacts the multiplayer gameplay and competitive potential.
After what feels like an eternity of fans clamouring for it, Call of Duty has finally gone back to where it all began: the trenches of World War II. For the campaign, this presents an opportunity for developer Sledgehammer Games to remould the Band of Brothers-like feeling of squad combat over the futuristic one-man-army Halo-like power fantasies of the recent CoD games.
But in terms of multiplayer, the World War II setting presents some interesting changes to what’s been assumed as part of the CoD formula ever since the franchise started pressing further into the future. First and foremost, the time to kill (TTK) has been tweaked. A bolt-action sniper rifle from afar or a shotgun at point blank will still one-shot drop you for sure, but assault rifles and SMGs require more centre mass hits to kill someone.
This seems to be in response to the removal of the boosted escapability that Sledgehammer first introduced in Advanced Warfare, and was built upon in Treyarch’s Black Ops III and Infinity Ward’s Infinite Warfare. In those futuristic entries, escapability came care of advanced movement, which worked with the sci-fi setting. Soldiers in World War II weren’t equipped with exoskeletons or nano-mods, though, so that’s understandably out the window for Call of Duty: WWII.
The rejigged TTK also rewards headshots in a fast-paced environment. It’s a shame there isn’t a slide function, as you still take enough damage that you’ll usually die to anyone who gets the drop on you, unless their aim is terrible. At least, this was the case on PC. On console, the first beta I played had aim assist enabled, but it was disabled for the second console beta phase. If Sledgehammer leaves it off for the full release, it could improve escapability for console players moving across the aim of an enemy using a fully automatic weapon at range. But by adding a slide, it’d preserve forward momentum, allowing players to break line of sight (across platforms).
Call of Duty WWII features a MP hub
© Activision
As it stands, the infamous CoD drop shot seems to be a popular trick for breaking aim when ambushed,but it renders you immobile and only buys you an extra half-second of digital life before your opponent adjusts their aim. More concerning is the use of drop shots in face-to-face fights, which flops the drop-shotting player below the scope of the aiming-down-sights (ADS) player and implicitly rewards dolphin-diving spray-and-pray tactics. It’s as ugly to watch on replay as it is to experience, which means it doesn’t make for great competitive viewing. Considering Sledgehammer forces the player’s weapon away while vaulting, drop shotting could be curbed by similarly removing the player’s ability to shoot while the prone animation is playing.
The other problem in terms of movement accuracy is the opposite of the drop shot: jump shotting. While accuracy is, thankfully, negatively impacted by jumping, it’s still far too accurate – especially for faster-firing SMGs in close quarters – to be deterred in its current form. It’s a viable tactic for weeding out corner campers in enclosed spaces, but it also feels cheap.
I know this because I jumped around a corner to kill an enemy I’d heard shooting, and had killed him with a mid-air spray before that player could even get a shot on me. Given CoD’s fast pace, it’s also a somewhat extreme instance of abusing the peeker’s advantage, whereby the nature of the delay of online gaming gives an edge to players moving quickly around corners.
COD:WWII features the fantastic War mode
© Activision
Even though I’ve mentioned that drop shotting could be curbed by making it more like how vaulting is handled in CoD: WWII, I’d actually prefer if Sledgehammer took a leaf out of Battlefield’s book and let you shoot while vaulting, albeit with greatly impacted accuracy. For my experience with CoD: WWII, there was an abundance of campers around vault points, which led to frustrating deaths with no way of fighting back. It is possible to game some of these points, and time a jump earlier to bypass the vault animation with weapon in hand, but your only other option for clearing is to hope for a clear flanking route, or waste a precious grenade on a speculative lob.
Grenades are incredibly powerful, with multi-kill potential, but rarely seems to be enough time to toss one back, despite the option to do so, even if the thrower hasn’t cooked it. From what I played, there also doesn’t appear to be a way to replenish grenades, which means it’s sometimes better to tolerate a tally in your death column than miss out on the explosive potential of a room-clearing multi-kill.
One of the bigger concerns is the map size in relation to the max 12-player count. In the past, Call of Duty has had larger player counts, and the WWII maps I played on felt like they were designed with more players in mind. There are pockets of frantic shootouts, which is where the game is at its most fun. But there’s also plenty of sprinting around a map in the hopes of finding a fight. This is less of a concern on objective-based mode, such as the fantastic War mode, which forces players to concentrate fighting around specific points of interest. War mode has the strongest competitive potential of all the Call of Duty: WWII modes.
The fast respawn time in this mode means you’re rarely out of the fight for long, and the option to build or destroy defences is a great touch that adds great utility to the regular CoD gameplay formula. War has fixed spawn zones and out-of-bounds areas for enemies, which is bolstered by an accumulative insta-death when you’re in out-of-bounds territory. This means you can’t exploit it by ducking in and out to reset the timer, all while attack unexpecting enemies.
Other modes don’t fare as well when it comes to spawning. There were times when I spawned too far away from the action, and others when I spawned with enemies already shooting at me. Given my previous criticism about the size of the maps in comparison to the total player count, there is room for a respawn algorithm that protects players, but doesn’t have to spawn them on the other side of the fight.
Compared to other competitive titles like Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege, the intel provided by sound design isn’t on par in Call of Duty: WWII. It’s difficult to hear enemy footsteps, and they’re at the same volume as your teammates when you do hear them. Copying the Overwatch model of louder enemy footsteps, and/or the Siege approach of sound that carries long distances could help improve the intelligence-gathering potential of CoD: WWII’s soundscape.
That said, the weapons sound incredible, and they feel great, across types. Part of this is the Battlefield 1-like idea of designing weapon recoil and damage to match the range of the weapon type. Shotguns and SMGs are brutal in close-quarters, but limp at longer ranges, forcing the players wielding these guns to close the gap.
Conversely, rifles, LMGs and assault rifles are stronger at longer distances, but struggle to compete with the damage-dealing potential of shotguns and SMGs up close. This incentivises everyone to play to the range of their weapon, and it adds tactical versatility to the multiplayer. Still, the standard pistol secondary weapon deals too much damage, rivalling even an SMG in terms of damage per second in close quarters. Hopefully, that will be tweaked. Similarly, the rocket-firing bazooka/Panzerschreck option as a secondary weapon is a nice touch in terms of historical accuracy, but its one-shot multi-kill potential, with minimal risk to the shooter, also upsets the balance of the primaries.
It's at its best when teamwork is emphasised
© Activision
It may be exclusive to PC at this stage, but a couple of days into the recent beta, there were already aimbotting cheaters. Sledgehammer needs to have a strong anti-cheat policy in place to ensure the viability of CoD: WWII’s multiplayer on PC, let alone its competitive potential for online tournaments. The unfortunate reality of online gaming on PC is the more popular the game, the more likely it is to be targeted by cheaters, and every Call of Duty game is going to be popular, especially at launch.
Rampant cheating has the potential to kill an online community, and a dwindling CoD community is bad news for competitive potential. Sledgehammer may want to consider taking a leaf out of Ubisoft Montreal’s book and introducing two anti-cheat systems for deterring multiplayer cheats.
More refreshing is the stronger emphasis on teamwork afforded by the effectiveness of particular weapon types at specific ranges, and the avatar callouts of player positions when you or a teammate spots an enemy. The maps still lean a little too heavily into the three-lane design philosophy, but that’s tried and proven across online games, and is very much standard fare for CoD.
If Sledgehammer can address some of the bigger gripes outlined above, there’s no reason why Call of Duty: WWII can’t be a refreshing change of pace for the CoD competitive scene. It puts the emphasis back on weapons and shooting, more so than sci-fi gadgetry, and the added utility of War mode combined with the greater emphasis on teamwork means this latest Call of Duty could make for exciting viewing, too.
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