It seems like it’s been a long time since a Call of Duty game had so much focus on its single player campaign, and while it remains to be seen just how much of it will pay off when the game finally comes out, it’s been encouraging to hear all the stuff Sledgehammer has been saying about WWII’s single player experience.
Recently, in an interview with Metro, Sledgehammer boss Michael Condrey was asked about WWII’s single player campaign and what kind of an experience it will offer, and whether it will have more player agency than we’ve been used to seeing in recent Call of Duty titles, and Condrey went into some detail with his answer. “We really wanted to have you come to know and care about, and be invested in, your squad,” Condrey said. “So you will follow the infantry. You will play as Daniels and share his experience. Now, because World War II wasn’t about Tier 1 super-soldiers, who have access to all the gear and intel possible, we do have you seeing the conflict through a couple of different perspectives. Including Rousseau, which is the strong female French Resistance leader.”
“You’ll experience success, you’ll experience loss,” Condrey continued. “We wanted to give you agency as a player, but we wanted to tell our story and have you follow that narrative with us. Now, we’ve made some changes, where we’ve taken out the auto-generating health system to really make you feel vulnerable all of the time. And we have squad abilities, where your squad mates help you out with ammo and the medics are very important. So there are moments where there is agency and dynamic sort of things that change based on who you’re with within your squad, which we think is really powerful. But you’re largely following your squad and experiencing this three-act narrative we’ve constructed.”
It’s starting to sound like the success of WWII’s campaign will hinge on how well it develops its characters and their relationships and interactions with each other, because as it stands right now, it definitely sounds like those things will be the main focus on the game’s story. Call of Duty: WWII is out this November for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Stay tuned for continued coverage.
