I expected nothing. After Call of Duty's previous fumble with Infinite Warfare and Sledgehammer's only other game in the franchise (Advanced Warfare) being questionable at best I didn't want to get my hopes up. I simply wanted to experience the game for myself. No agenda. No expectations. Just pure gaming. I was not disappointed.
I only played the first mission last night, but I can't get the images out of my head. Legs blown off. An entire boat of US soldiers...mowed down. Bodies without heads. The water stained red with blood. Corpses falling on top of me. It was so graphic that it made me wonder if this is how it actually was, or if they dramatized it for my entertainment.
…
I start to make my way up the beach, sparse with cover, but riddled with bullets.
Men are falling beside my footsteps as I charge up the path. When we prepared for landing, it was an endless, barren plain of sand, but now, it’s as if I’m walking up a vertical cliff. The sheer gravity of the bullets and barrage of bombastic noise reorient the very planet under my feet.
Somehow, I make it to the end of the beach and I'm given a long tube with an explosive charge at the end of it. I use it to blow an opening in a barbwire fence. I never thought I'd make it this far. I'm scared. Honest-to-god fear, and adrenaline are tearing my nerves to shreds.
My hands are shaking as I'm trying to hold my controller. I can't give in.
I have new orders. Move up the hill and clear out the MG nests before our reinforcements arrive. The next few minutes are a blur of machine gun fire and blood. I get to the last of the five nests. I step inside. He’s as startled as I am. Who? Both the German's gun and mine are knocked away. We're fighting with our hands.
He gets his around my neck. I'm blacking out. Before I know what's happening the German is on the ground. Zussman, our Jewish medic who speaks with a lisp, is fighting with the Kraut. It's not going well. The Nazi pulls out a knife.
I need to help Zussman. I tackle the German to the ground reach for a nearby helmet, and knock him out. But I don't stop, not until I see his skull underneath his now crimson hair. There's a pool of blood. I step away from the game, shaken by what I've just seen. By what I've just done.
I reenter the game, my breath reaquired.
Right now, I know only two things:
One, this game is not for the faint of heart.
Two, I need to see this to the end.
Call of Duty WWII is now available on Xbox, PlayStation and Windows PC.
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