“Call of Duty: WWII” came out this past week and I have only played the story mode and let me tell you, it was one of the best story modes in a Call of Duty game that I have played since around “Black Ops II”. The campaign is gritty, realistic, and brutal, it is a definite must play for all gamers. The story mode follows the “Bloody 1^st” from D-Day all the way to crossing the Rhine.

The story mode opens up on June 6^th, 1944, which is known as none other then D-Day. There is a short cut scene then you are placed in the boots of PFC. Daniels and D-Day is his first encounter in combat. The game accurately depicts D-Day, such as machine gun fire on the beach and much more. The mission has some interesting moments where the player has to hit buttons at the right time in order to fight another soldier.

The game also does not have the regeneration of health and you have to get first aid packs either from the battlefield or from one of your squad mates named Zussman. Which can get annoying, but it makes the game more fun and it requires you to actually take cover and be strategic instead of just running out into the thick of it all like Rambo. Although it can get annoying, the use of first aid packs instead of regenerating health breathes a breath of fresh air into the series.

The game had so many great moments as well, one of them being a mission called “Liberation” which is the liberation of Paris from the Germans. The mission starts with the player playing as a character codenamed named “Rousseau”. She is the leader of the French Resistance and basically her whole family was murdered by the Nazi’s. Rousseau is tasked with planting explosives on the doors of the SS compound so that the Americans can storm the place. One of the things that I really enjoyed about this mission was the fact that you were given choice, you could chose what you could say and there were consequences. If you said the wrong thing, the guard questioning you will get suspicious and possibly compromise the mission for you. You are given a booklet which you can take out at anytime and look at and here is where you can find all your answers to the guard’s questions.

The campaign depicts war in a realistic way, as I said before, such as when you were storming the beaches there is a sequence where Daniels encounters a dead soldier and you get the sense that he is in shock at what he is seeing. The story also does not shy away from the horrors of the war, such as the concentration camps. One part of the story, towards the end, Zussman, who is Jewish, is captured and sent to a work camp by the Germans. In the game, this is one of the reasons Daniels doesn’t go back home to his pregnant girlfriend and stays to cross the Rhine. Throughout the game, it is established that Daniels and Zussman are best friends. So naturally, Daniels sticks around to make sure his friend is rescued. He is rescued but not before seeing the inside of a concentration camp. This is something that caught me a little off guard as I was not expecting a video game to touch upon such a sensitive topic, but it did and I feel it did in a respectful way without being disrespectful to those that died.

Overall, I would say that “Call of Duty: WWII” is a fantastic game and is something that all gamers should play. The story is phenomenal and the zombies mode is really fun from what I have played so far. Multiplayer I haven’t touched yet but I am excited to try it out. Call of Duty; World War II is out now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC