The narrative for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 versions focuses on the
Pacific Theater and
Eastern Front theaters of World War II, involving the
United States, the
Empire of Japan, the
Soviet Union, and
Nazi Germany. It is told from the perspectives of
Marine Raider Private C. Miller, US Navy Petty Officer Locke and
Red Army soldier Private Dimitri Petrenko, and is based on several historical battles. The
multiplayer component of the game contains various game modes and a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons and rewards as they progress, similar to
Call of Duty 4. The game also contains downloadable content called "map packs", which can be purchased online. A new feature to the series was the addition of a
cooperative mode, which supports up to two players locally and four players online.
Gameplay[edit]
Overview[edit]
World at War is a game in the
Call of Duty series,
[4] and features a more mature theme than its previous installments.
[5] The game is also open-ended, giving the player multiple ways to complete objectives.
[6] The gameplay of
World at War shares several features with previous iterations of the franchise. Players fight alongside
AI-controlled teammates. They help during the game's missions by providing cover fire, shooting down enemies, and clearing rooms for entry.
[7]
When playing the
Wii version of the game, instead of using a normal controller, such as the ones used by the
Xbox 360 and the
PlayStation 3, an optional gun-like expansion controller known as the
Wii Zapper can be used. The Zapper, or
Wii Remote and
Nunchuk, can be used to aim at targets to fire at them and simulate marksmanship.
[8]
A character can be positioned in one of three stances: standing, crouching, or prone; each affecting the character's rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. Using cover helps the player avoid enemy fire or recover health after taking significant damage, as there are no armor or health powerups. When the character has taken damage, the edges of the screen glow red and the character's heartbeat increases. If the character stays out of fire, the character can recover. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, a marker indicates the direction of the grenade, helping the player in deciding whether to flee or throw it back at the enemy.
[7]
The single player campaign includes thirteen hidden "death cards", denoted by playing cards attached to makeshift war graves. There is one in each level (barring those that take place in vehicles); collecting them unlocks cheats for Co-op mode, such as reduced enemy endurance and "paintball mode".
[9]
Multiplayer[edit]
World at War includes a similar multiplayer experience to that which was established in
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. All versions of the game use a similar perk and ranking system
[10] and feature six different multiplayer modes, including team
deathmatch and
capture the flag.
[11] There are a group of three "killstreak rewards" that can be used to turn the tide of battle. The killstreak rewards include a recon plane, showing opposing players on the mini-map, an artillery strike upon an area, and attack dogs, which spawn and attack opposing players, which come with 3, 5, and 7 kills, respectively. They are available in all game modes, apart from team survival, and cannot be edited.

Gameplay in online multiplayer's War mode
The game also features a
cooperative gameplay mode with up to two players via
split screen on consoles, or four players online, for the first time in the franchise. The Wii version of the game does not include online co-op, but two players can play through a "squadmate co-op" mode which allows both players to experience the game through the same screen and point of view.
[10]
All versions except the
Wii feature the
minigame Nazi Zombies, which consists of 1-4 players fighting an unlimited number of waves of
Nazi zombies. Players can work together with other people to assassinate the zombies in a "co-op" (cooperative) mode either offline with two players or online with 2-4 players. The players gain points by injuring or killing the zombies or repairing boarded-up windows, which are used to remove blockages inside the bunker and to gain access to more useful weapons than the starting
M1911 pistol and unlock more rooms. Zombies continually break the windows to gain entrance and to find and beat the players; when all players are damaged enough to fall, the game is over.
[12] Three extra maps for the Nazi Zombie game mode were added with the World at War map packs. These maps, Shi No Numa, Verruckt and Der Riese added on to the Nacht Der Untoten map which came with the game.
Synopsis[edit]
Characters[edit]
During the single-player campaign, the player controls three different characters from a
first-person perspective. The player first assumes the role of Private C. Miller of the
United States Marine Corps'
1st Marine Division in the
Pacific campaign. He is captured by the Japanese, but is rescued by
Corporal Roebuck (voiced by
Kiefer Sutherland) and his men from the
Marine Raiders squad, during the
Makin Island raid. Other notable non-playable characters of the Marine Raiders unit include Sergeant Tom Sullivan (voiced by Chris Fries) and Private Polonsky (voiced by
Aaron Stanford).
[13] Private Dimitri Petrenko, the second playable character, fights on the
Eastern Front with
Sergeant Viktor Reznov (voiced by
Gary Oldman). They are joined by a third character, Private Chernov, Reznov's subordinate, who serves as a voice of reason throughout the campaign and regularly voices shock and disapproval at the brutal slaughter he regularly witnesses. They are all soldiers in the
3rd Shock Army under the command of Commissar Markhov.
[13] The third playable character in the campaign is
Petty Officer Locke, a weapons operator on a
PBY Catalina flying boat, who is only playable in the mission
"Black Cats"during a solo campaign.
[13]

The opening scene of the campaign
The story begins on
Makin Island on August 17, 1942. American Marine Private C. Miller watches the
torture and execution of his team, and is about to be executed himself before being rescued by another squad of Marines, led by Corporal Roebuck and Sergeant Tom Sullivan. They assault the Japanese on the island, replicating the
Makin Island raid. The
Battle of Peleliu is then replicated. After breaking through the Japanese lines on the
Peleliu beach, Miller destroys two
Type 97 Chi-Ha tanks with rocket strikes, allowing the American tanks to advance. At the end of the mission, Sullivan is killed by a Japanese officer with a
katana. Roebuck is promoted to Sergeant and he and his squad make their way through the Peleliu swamps to launch an assault on a Japanese-held airfield to disable anti-aircraft guns. During the assault, Miller acquires a
flamethrower to destroy a bunker and a
bazooka to blow up the Chi-Has positioned at the airfield.
[13]
Meanwhile, the
Battle of Stalingrad is held on the
Eastern Front on September 17, 1942. Russian Private Dimitri Petrenko regains consciousness in a blood-stained and body-filled fountain, just as German troops execute his comrades. When they leave, Dimitri meets injured Sergeant
Viktor Reznov, another survivor, who tells him of his mission to kill German general Heinrich Amsel, who is responsible for the massacres. After killing German soldiers in their way and a duel with an enemy sniper, Dimitri follows Reznov through buildings and streets and they meet up with the remainder of Dimitri's unit, who are about to assault the General's communication post. During the assault, Dimitri provides overwatch with Reznov and aid the remaining Red Army soldiers recapture the post and manages to kill Amsel as he flees. Dimitri and Reznov jump into the
Volga River and escape. The next mission takes place three years later, during the
Battle of the Seelow Heights, near
Berlin. Dimitri has been captured by German soldiers in an abandoned house, but is saved when the
Red Army attacks the house and he is re-united with Reznov and introduced to his right-hand-man Pvt. Chernov. The Soviet troops advance through German lines and Dimitri aids them with a
Panzerschreck until they reach and wipe out a German camp.
[13]
America then battles Japan in the
Pacific Theater. After pushing further inland on Peleliu, Miller and his unit take out enemy
mortar crews so their tanks can go inland. They then proceed through the Japanese underground tunnels to attack the artillery-filled Point, one of the major Japanese strongholds that had destroyed many landing boats when they first landed. This allows American ships to advance, and Peleliu finally falls into American hands.
[13]

A firefight in the streets of Berlin
Back in Eastern Europe, Dimitri and Reznov pilot
T-34 tanks pushing through German lines so the Soviet troops can board a train to Berlin. Upon arrival, they engage German soldiers on the outskirts of Berlin, commencing the
Battle of Berlin. They then advance through the streets, eventually reaching the entrance to the
Berlin U-Bahn, where three German soldiers are attempting to surrender. Reznov is unwilling to deny his men their revenge and gives Dimitri the choice of shooting them or burning them alive with
molotov cocktails. They head into the U-Bahn and start fighting German soldiers around the platforms, until a surge of water fills the tunnel and Dimitri, unable to avoid the oncoming tidal wave, almost drowns.
[13]
After American gains Peleliu, the
Battle of Okinawa occurs on the Pacific, where the Petty Officer Locke, in a
PBY Catalinaflying boat, takes part in a raid on three
merchant ships. On their way back to base, another Catalina, codenamed Hammerhead, is destroyed by Japanese Zeroes, leaving Locke and his crew alone. The US fleet is assaulted, replicating
Operation Ten-Go. Locke's PBY, the only PBY near enough to come to immediate aid, works to rescue as many American sailors as possible by fighting off Japanese
PT boats and
kamikaze planes. With the PBY almost completely destroyed, more US aircraft arrive and drive off the remaining Zeroes. In the following mission, Miller's squad makes a ground assault on
Okinawa, clearing out the Japanese from machine gun bunkers to allow American tanks to progress. With the battle almost won, the Americans storm
Shuri Castle amidst mortar shelling and massive
banzai charges. Once inside, they encounter Japanese soldiers surrendering. However, when Roebuck and Polonsky go to search them, they reveal concealed grenades under their clothes, at which point Miller is presented with the choice of saving either Roebuck or Polonsky. The remaining American troops arrive to assist the squad and engage the remaining Japanese soldiers in a battle in the castle center. After Miller calls in air strikes on two buildings, the Americans take Shuri Castle, crushing the last bastion of Japanese resistance in the Pacific War.
[13]
Meanwhile, Reznov drags Dimitri out of the U-Bahn to regroup with Soviet infantry. The Red Army then advances towards the
Reichstag. During the assault at the Reichstag's entrance, Chernov is severely burned by a flamethrower, and is implied to be killed. Reznov, Dimitri and the remaining Soviet soldiers enter the Reichstag, clear it of its German defenders, and reach the rooftop. After a final showdown on the top floor to reach the
Nazi flag, Dimitri is shot by a dying German soldier in an attempt to stop him from planting the Soviet flag, but Reznov kills the German with a machete. Although wounded, Dimitri manages to
plant the Soviet flag, signaling Soviet victory and ending the war in Europe.
[13]
Development[edit]
World at War was announced on June 23, 2008 by Activision, who confirmed that the game was to be released in fall 2008, and that the series would revert to its customary World War II setting.
[14] The game had an approximately two-year-long development cycle, double that of Treyarch's previous entry to the series,
Call of Duty 3.
[5] The game is powered by an enhanced version of the
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine, with several improvements made to the physics model. Environments are more destructible and can be set on fire with the flamethrower, which features propagating fire. Dismemberment, as well as realistic skin and clothes burning of the characters were added.
[15]
Not long after, Treyarch released the modding tools for
Call of Duty: World at War. These tools were the same ones used to create all the other
Call of Duty series games, but with slight changes version to version, which can be downloaded online.
[5]Kiefer Sutherland and
Gary Oldman were cast as
voice actors for the game. Sutherland voices the narrator and squad leader of the American campaign, Sergeant Roebuck, while Oldman voices that of the Soviet campaign, Sergeant Reznov.
[16][17] A full-sized replica
PBY Catalina was constructed for
motion capture use.
[5]

Full-sized replica PBY Catalina in a motion capture studio.
The music for
Call of Duty: World at War was composed by
Sean Murray. He was hired after Brian Tuey, Treyarch's audio director, approached Murray. Murray stated that they had worked together earlier on
True Crime: New York City, the sequel to the first
True Crime: Streets of LA, and that "he [Tuey] knew I would bring a fresh approach to
Call of Duty: World at War". This also led to Adam Levenson, the audio director of Activision, being called in to help them. Murray also said that he wanted to make the music more fun and intense, but also "a specific musical path that follows the psyche of the gameplay".
[18]
The new technology of
occlusion, which changes the sound made by nearby object depending on objects blocking its path e.g. walls, has been added to
World at War. The game has various levels of "muffled" sound depending on the objects it travels though e.g. a more muffled sound through a thick wall compared to a slightly muffled sound through a thin short wall. For the first time in a Call of Duty game, the player is able to tell the difference between someone walking next to the player and someone walking above or below the player, as well as telling the difference between a shot fired in the distance and a shot fired close by, but behind a solid object.
[19]
The other technology of Flux was also developed using
field recording systems. The
World at War crew traveled to a
desertwith
mountains on both side of the range to test the
frequencies of sounds made by
World War II weapons.
Microphoneswere placed 60 yards (55 m) behind and 60 yards in front of the gun to test the
echoes. This was later replicated and developed in the studio for the game software. It means that players will be able to pinpoint a
sniper rifle shot, as it reflects off them, as well as hearing the initial 'pop' of a
hand grenade blowing up and then the grenade's loud "whoosh" sound that begins where the grenade blew up, and ends behind the player. The flux system also combines with the occlusion system.
[19]
Marketing[edit]
The first trailer for the game premiered on
Xbox Live on June 21, 2008,
[20] and arrived on
PlayStation Network five days later.
[21] A beta of the game's online multiplayer mode was released for the Xbox 360 on October 10, 2008.
[22] A PC version of the beta was later released on October 28, 2008.
[23] Those who pre-ordered the game at
GameStop,
Game and
EB Games in Australia or North America or who are members of the
Call of Duty official website were given codes which allowed them to download both beta versions of the game.
[24] Coinciding with the release of the game,
McFarlane Toys produced four action figures. Three are different varieties of US Marine Corps infantry, and the fourth is a British Special Ops soldier.
[25]
A collector's edition of
World at War was released on November 11, 2008 in
North America and November 14, 2008 in
Europe.
[26] It includes several bonus items, among them a stainless steel canteen imprinted with the
Call of Duty series logo and a metal storage tin. The collector's edition also gives the player access to an unlockable weapon and the opportunity to earn double experience points in the online multiplayer mode, as well as a specially colored clan tag to denote the player's VIP status. This edition of the game is only available for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms.
[27]
Downloadable content[edit]
On February 26, 2009, an update was made available to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, as well as the addition of a new multiplayer map, Makin Day. The update included several bug fixes which removed glitches in several multiplayer maps and player movements, and provided more information in the stats display.
[28] The Makin Day map was released for Microsoft Windows on February 6, 2009 in the downloadable patch 1.2. Makin Day has a similar layout as the existing Makin map,
[29] but includes subtle changes such as daylight, reflected in the tide being out along the shoreline as well as some reworked areas of the map.
[29]

Screenshot of the gameplay in Verrückt
On March 18, 2009,
Activision and
Treyarch announced that
downloadable content(DLC) was under development for
World at War, titled Map Pack 1. This first installment of DLC Treyarch released, Map Pack 1, on March 19, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, while the Windows version received the DLC at a later date. The map pack includes three new multiplayer maps and one new Nazi Zombies map. The Nazi Zombies map, entitled "Verrückt" (
German:
crazy). The map was based on the multiplayer map Asylum and based on the asylum in the campaign mission
Ring of Steel . The map includes new weapons and power-ups intended to expand the experience. Players can turn on a power generator that reunites both sides and enables perk machines.
[30] The new multiplayer map called "Nightfire" takes places at night in the streets of a bombed-out area of
Berlin. The "Knee Deep" map is in the jungle of
Peleliu and contains fortified huts and streams. "Station" is located in a ruined underground train station in Berlin featuring subway cars and hidden passages.
[31] Reports stated that Map Pack 1 sold over 1 million copies in the first week of availability, setting an Xbox Live record for the number of downloads in a week.
[32]
On April 30, 2009, Activision and Treyarch announced Map Pack 2,
[33] which was released on June 11.
[34] Map Pack 2 contains an additional four multiplayer maps. The "Shi No Numa" (
Japanese:
"死の沼" 'swamp of death') is a new map on the Nazi Zombies co-op mode set in a misty swamp-land surrounded by jungle. New features include flaming
hellhounds, the Wunderwaffe DG-2 weapon and ten new
achievements/
trophies. Also, it featured four new characters: Tank Dempsey U.S.M.C, Nikolai Belinski of the Red Army, Nazi Doctor Edward Richtofen and Takeo Masaki of the Japanese Imperial Army. The multiplayer map "Banzai" is set in a jungle featuring a river bridge, villages, a waterfall and hidden caves. The "Corrosion" map is set in a run-down train yard in Russia, featuring broken pipelines and train cars. The "Sub Pens" map is located in a bombed-out Japanese
submarine base with heavy rain.
[35]
On July 20, 2009, Activision and Treyarch announced Map Pack 3, which was released August 6, 2009. This DLC also consists of three new multiplayer maps and a new Nazi Zombies map. The three multiplayer maps are "Battery", which takes place on an abandoned coastal artillery battery Pacific; "Breach", which is set in the overcrowded streets of Berlin, Germany near the Brandenburg Gate; and "Revolution", which is based on an industrialized city in Russia. The new Nazi Zombies map, "
Der Riese" which means "The Giant" in English, is based in a factory where
Element 115 is being processed and used to build teleporters and other mysterious devices, such as the "Pack-a-Punch Machine", which upgrades guns, such as the Wunderwaffe DG-2. New weapons, such as Monkey Bombs were also added. This map also introduced the official backstory to Zombies mode, which is continued into
Call of Duty: Black Ops.
[36]
All map packs were released for free to PC players. Xbox 360 and PS3 players were charged.
[citation needed]
Other versions[edit]
Nintendo DS[edit]
Call of Duty: World at War was released for the Nintendo DS on November 11, 2008 in North America,
[37] and on November 14 in Europe.
[38] It was published by Activision and developed by
n-Space, who used the same
game engine as their previous title,
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
[39] The game's scenarios are also based on World War II's
Pacific theater and
Eastern front with
American,
British and Soviet campaigns.
[37] Up to four players can be supported online with four different types of game, as well as perks and rank-ups.
[39] Compared to
Modern Warfare, it has improved in-level geometry, has more responsive sprints and crouches and 3D-modeled guns instead of 2D sprites.
[39] However the flamethrower, which is new to the game series, is rendered with 2D sprites.
[39] The framerate is just under 30 and has lots of voice-over during the missions.
[40] Players are able to defuse mines and send Morse code with the touch screen, as well as using mortar rounds, an anti-air gun from a battleship, parachuting and using mounted guns.
[39] There is also a tank mode which allows the player to turn the main gun and fire machine gun rounds at the same time.
[39]
PlayStation 2[edit]
The
PlayStation 2 version, titled
Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts, differs significantly from the main versions. Developed by
Rebellion Developments,
[41] Final Fronts features 13 missions set near the end of World War II across three different campaigns. Aside from the two campaigns in the Pacific and Eastern Europe,
Final Fronts also includes a third campaign involving the British advance on the
Rhine River. The missions range from infantry, infiltration, sniper, large-scale assaults, night fighting, and tank assaults.
[42]
The U.S. campaign follows Pvt. Miller and the squad from World at War, but here Miller is of the 2nd Marines Division, instead of the 1st. The game includes his missions from World at War. The Western Europe campaign is from the perspective of Lucas Gibson, of the American 80th Infantry Division. His missions are in
Luxembourg and
Austria. Most of the Europe campaign, the player controls
Pvt. Tom Sharpe of the
British 6th Airborne. Final Fronts does not feature online multiplayer or a Nazi Zombies mode. Like other versions, the game includes 2 flamethrower missions and a tank mission, however the latter is on-rails rather than free roaming. The flamethrower in Final Fronts only fires on a small scale, whereas the PlayStation 3 version allows the flamethrower to be used on a large scale in more missions and it is highly visible where it is fired. The tank mission is from the perspective of a tank gunner named Alex.
[43]
Also, the melee attack is not a knife slash or stab like in the PS3/Xbox 360 versions, but simply a hit from the butt of the gun.
[44]
iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad versions[edit]