Call Of Duty fights 'em on the beaches once again today
Saving Private Lootbox
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. You can take your modern wars and future wars and shove 'em where the Soap don't shine, because Call of Duty has, of today, gone back to the one-time future of first-person shooters: World War II. Call of Duty: WW2 is out now, y'see.
But is this latter-day noisenik shoutyman CoD with a 1940s skin on top, or is it really a concerted return to the glory days of the mid-2000s and the series' earliest days? Early word from our man in Normandy - i.e. Mister John Walker, who's currently reviewing CoD WW2 for us - is that the campaign is thus far Quite Good. He's not exactly been a fan of recent CoD singleplayers, so this might just be one to sit up and pay attention to.
It's not all good news in CoDworld, however. Enormous day-one patches (for the console versions at least), multiplayer connectivity issues, and, as reported on Kotaku, players glitching out of levels, haven't made for the smoothest launch, plus there's some simmering discomfort around finding lootboxes on Omaha beach. Errors can be fixed, vogueish Skinner box features forcibly inserted into a historical game less so.
Nonetheless, my own sense from peers and internet-watching alike is that there's a bit more buzz about this year's CoD than the series has enjoyed for a short while. Hell, I'm even tempted to run'n'gun the singleplayer myself, as people I trust have told me it really does recapture some of those CoD 1&2 glory days. Obviously there's multiplayer too, plus a dedicated Zombies mode, as is the CoD norm. Sledgehammer rather than Infinity Ward handled main dev duties this time around, for what it's worth.
Call of Duty: WW2 is out now on Steam for £45/€60/$60.
Oh - if you are planning to play, don't forget to upgrade 'dem graphics drivers for the best performance. Here's NVIDIA's CoD-friendly software, and here's AMD's.