Call of Duty: World at War Review — A Strong Shooter with One Great Mode

Call of Duty: World at War opens in captivity. Private C. Miller, a U.S. Marine, is a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army on Makin Island in 1942. He is rescued, then sent to Peleliu and Okinawa under Corporal Roebuck. Half a world away, Soviet Private Dimitri Petrenko is found by Sergeant Viktor Reznov in the ruins of Stalingrad. The two men work toward one objective: killing a German general responsible for war crimes.

Treyarch built this game on an enhanced version of Infinity Ward’s IW engine and used it to push the violence further than any Call of Duty before it. Limbs come off. Environments come apart. The Pacific campaign does not flinch, and the Eastern Front ends with a wounded Dimitri planting the Soviet flag on the Reichstag in 1945.

It is a good shooter. It is also the fifth main installment in a series that had already found its formula, and the cracks show.

Trailer, via Call of Duty.

Miller on Makin Island, Dimitri in Stalingrad

The campaign splits cleanly between two theaters and two men. Miller fights across Pacific islands. Dimitri moves from Stalingrad in 1942, through the Seelow Heights, into Berlin itself in 1945. The structure gives Treyarch room to alternate between jungle and rubble, and the contrast works. The Pacific levels are green and close and full of ambush. The Soviet levels are grey and open and full of ruin.

Both men are privates. Neither is a hero in the way the series usually writes them. Miller starts as a prisoner. Dimitri starts as a survivor found among corpses. Reznov gives the Eastern Front its voice, and the assassination mission in Stalingrad is the campaign’s sharpest sequence because it has a goal beyond reaching the next checkpoint.

The problem is that the game keeps handing the player a rifle and a corridor. World at War is open-ended, in the sense that players get multiple ways to finish objectives and fight alongside AI-controlled teammates who provide cover fire, shoot down enemies and clear rooms for entry. The campaign’s best moments are the ones that narrow it — the flag on the Reichstag, the general in the ruins.

Nazi Zombies Changes the Series

The cooperative zombies mode is the reason this game still gets talked about. Up to four players fight increasingly difficult waves of undead. They buy weapons. They unlock new areas. It is a survival mode bolted onto a World War II shooter, and it should not work, and it does. Nazi Zombies went on to become a mainstay in Treyarch’s subsequent Call of Duty games. It is the one mode here that did something the series had not done before.

Multiplayer is the other half. World at War keeps the leveling, perk and killstreak systems from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, released the year before. That is a sound decision. It is also a cautious one. The multiplayer takes its rhythm from Modern Warfare, and the weapons are period-appropriate but the feel is familiar.

Players carry up to two weapons plus hand grenades, pick up guns from fallen friendlies and enemies, and find attachments like rifle grenades, telescopic sights and bayonets. Three stances — standing, crouching, prone — change movement speed, accuracy and stealth. There is no armor or health pickup. Take damage and the screen edges glow red, the heartbeat rises, and health regenerates if you stay out of fire. A grenade marker tells you which way to run.

All of it works. None of it surprises.

Death Cards and the Wii Remote

The campaign hides thirteen death cards, and they function as easter eggs. They are a small thing. They are also the only part of the campaign that rewards looking around instead of pushing forward, which says something about how the rest of it is built.

The Wii version uses the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to aim at enemies with motion controls. That version is a curiosity. The game shipped on PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360 and Wii in November 2008, announced by Activision in June 2008, with separate World at War titles for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2 carrying different storylines and missions. Development took two years and began after Call of Duty 3, Treyarch’s previous series entry, which was also set in World War II.

Two years is not long. The engine work is solid — destructible environments, limb dismemberment, realistic burn effects — but the game is built on an engine that was not Treyarch’s own.

What World at War Gets Right

The violence is the point, and it is handled with more care than the marketing suggested. World at War has more mature themes than previous Call of Duty installments. Miller’s rescue from captivity sets a tone the rest of the game mostly earns.

The audio and visual effects got increased development attention, and it shows in the burn effects and the way environments break. The gunplay is heavy and loud. The Eastern Front levels are the better half, because Reznov gives them a through-line and because Berlin in 1945 is a more interesting place to end a war than another island.

The campaign is short. The multiplayer is a known quantity. Nazi Zombies is the mode that will outlast everything else on the disc, and Treyarch presented it as a bonus rather than a pillar.

The Verdict on Treyarch’s 2008 Shooter

Call of Duty: World at War is competent at everything and original at one thing. The Pacific campaign does not reach the heights of the Soviet one. The multiplayer takes more than it invents. The death cards are a distraction. The open-ended design promise — multiple ways to complete objectives — is real, but the campaign’s strongest sequences are the narrow ones.

What holds up is the atmosphere and the zombies. The limb dismemberment and destructible environments were not just gore for its own sake; they made the war feel physical in a way earlier entries did not. The Reichstag flag planting is a genuine image. Nazi Zombies is a genuine idea.

This is a 7.5 of 10. A strong shooter with one great mode, one good campaign, and a multiplayer that borrows more than it invents. Worth playing. Not worth calling a classic.

Hard Numbers

• Title: Call of Duty: World at War
• Release: November 2008
• Developer: Treyarch
• Publisher: Activision
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox 360, Wii
• Announced: June 2008
• Development time: Two years
• Modes: Single player, multiplayer, co-operative, split screen
• Perspective: First person
• Critic aggregate: 7.5/10 (IGDB, 18 outlets)
• Clay Tribune score: 7.5 of 10

Release and Development Timeline

The zombies mode is the part worth watching. Treyarch did not treat it as the main event in 2008, and that is the decision the series has been living with ever since.

2008 game review · Activision · Call of Duty World at War · Nazi zombies · Treyarch · World War II shooter