Video Game / Call of Duty: WWII

Back to the past.

"Welcome to the Bloody First. You're a long way from Texas, farm boy."

The one where Call of Duty finally comes home.

Call of Duty: WWII is the fourteenth installment in the Call of Duty franchise, developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision on November 3, 2017. The game takes the series back to its roots by being set primarily during World War II, which hadn't been done since 2008's World at War.

The campaign, much like the earlier Call of Duty titles, is set in Western Europe late in World War II. In this game proper, you play as Pvt., later Cpl. "Red" Daniels, a native Texan assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, starting with his first combat experience landing on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Later, he takes part is some of the bitterest battles in the Theater, including the Battle of the Bulge and the push into Germany. Additionally, a few levels also focus on soldiers from other units, such as a Sherman tank commander, or the pilot of a P-47 Thunderbolt.

The game also continues the series tradition of Call of Duty: Zombies mode, returning to its roots of Nazi Zombies.

The reveal trailer for the game was released on April 26, 2017, and can be viewed here.

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The game provides examples of:

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: For most weapons, the Extended Magazine attachment is an arbitrary 50% increase in the magazine size, much like how previous Call of Duty games did. However, unlike most previous Call of Duty games, there are now separate models and sometimes even separate animations for the weapons with extended magazines, which are often (but not always) based on real magazines. This causes some weird situations like the Kar98K's Trench Magazine holding only 7 rounds instead of 20 in real life, or the famous 50-round drum on the Thompson holding only 45 rounds.
• Action Girl: Rousseau, a French resistance fighter who is also a playable character in the campaign. Truth in Television, despite the time period, as between 15 and 20% of French resistance fighters were female.
• A.K.A.-47:
  • While most guns use some variation of their real name (some more generic than others, like the Winchester Model 1897 being called the "Combat Shotgun"), the MP 28 gets the very bizarre rename of "Waffe 28", which means "Weapon 28" in German.
  • For multiplayer-only weapons added in post-release, there are a few interesting examples. The Breda Modello 30 is called the "GPMG", meaning General-Purpose Machine Gun, even though it's technically a Light Machine Gun (maybe calling it "LMG" just doesn't sound that good). The Beretta Model 38 is called "Orso" (Italian for "Bear"), and the Walther P38 is called the "9mm SAP" (SAP presumably stands for Semi-Automatic Pistol).
• The Alcoholic: Pierson is almost always drunk after Turner dies.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Wehrmacht is treated this way (with the sole exception of the SOE informant) to the point of shooting German civilians trying to flee the fighting.
• America Won World War II: This game plays this trope straight unlike the original World War 2 Call Of Duty games which showed the British and the Red Army campaigns. The final level is liberating a concentration camp in Germany, and after that the story concludes with everybody going home, no mention of how the Soviets took Berlin and forced Germany into surrendering. The only other allies shown are the Brits and the French resistance, both of whom only get a few missions of screentime.
• An Adventurer Is You: Classes in the Multiplayer select one of eight divisions (five on launch, with three added via patches), which specialize in a specific class of perks that they earn over total profile playtime. On launch, divisions also had division "abilities", special attachments exclusive to the weapon they specialized in, but have been patched to be either usable all the time (in the case of LMG bipods or holding breath while sniping) or non-exclusive unlockable attachments (bayonets, suppressors, incendiary shells and tactical knife). To compensate for the latter, all weapons now have an additional attachment slot, giving players the choice to either slot in the previously exclusive attachment, or just put something else in it entirely.
  • The Infantry Division are a simple division with bonuses catered to weaponry and combat effectiveness while aimed down sights. Extra attachment slots on all weapons, faster swapping, less sway and faster movement while aiming.
  • The Airborne Division have mobility-focused bonuses best for keeping on the move. Shooting and reloading while sprinting, faster mantling, no fall damage, and the ability to run faster over time.
  • The Armored Division have bonuses for resisting damage and effects, including reducing damage from explosives and fire, immunity to the effects of shell shock and tactical equipment, increased bullet penetration, and reduced flinching when shot.
  • The Mountain Division get stealth related bonuses. Invisibility to recon aircraft and controlled streaks, hidden enemy death locations, not showing name or giving a reticule color change to enemies, and silent movement.
  • The Expeditionary Division are focused on equipment, perfect for grenade usage. General improvements to equipment priming and throwing, and you can carry 2 slots of tacticals and lethals. Followed by replenishing ammo and equipment from dead enemies and over time, a specific enhancement for every tactical grenade, extra damage to War mode buildables (walls, MG placements, hedgehogs, etc.) and equipment damage marks enemies on the mini-map.
  • The Resistance Division were introduced around the time of the first map pack and specialize in gathering intel. They get an indicator pointing in the general direction of nearby enemies and scramble their radars (can be toggled to prevent the scrambling effect giving away your position). Enemy footsteps are amplified, kills and assists cause you to emit a ping that marks nearby enemies, and then increased mini-map view and easier target spotting.
  • The Cavalry Division were introduced during the United Front map pack, and are a class centered entirely around the Cavalry Shield (Synonym for the Riot Shield of other games), replacing their primary but allowing all weapons to be taken in the secondary slot. Additionally, they can earn the ability to shield charge while sprinting, capture/use objectives faster, and increased score from capping objectives, plus two assists counting as a kill.
  • The Commando Division was added with the fourth and final map pack of the game's life span: Shadow War. Rather than focusing on a specific tactic or playstyle, the Commando is more of a general power class that works best to support strong players who can go on long streaks. Their tactical grenade slot is replaced with the Paratrooper insert. Much like the tac insert it designates the location of your next spawn, but you must remain as a Commando class and you will parachute in from above, limiting your entry points and leaving you vulnerable. They then get faster health regeneration, then multi-kills and headshots provide ammo and increased points, then the final upgrade allows you to choose a second basic training perk for your class, making it the only method of doing so in the game.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The Battle of the Bulge level takes place on Christmas Day.
• Anachronism Stew: Late in the opening cutscene for the second campaign mission, Perez mentions Pierson getting an Article 15. Article 15 is a chapter of the modern Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ wasn't created until 1950, 5 years after the war ended.
  • The headquarters (somewhat inexplicably) feature a fully-playable Atari 2600, which didn't exist until the late 70's.
• Antepiece: Twice, both in D-Day.
  • The game brings back Press X to Not Die moments, but with the added requirement of moving the prompt in the target circle before pressing the button. The game teaches you this by giving you the same type of command to set up a Bangalore Torpedo, but without any time pressure, so the player can figure it out.
  • The grenade danger indicator returns, which shows you the location of live grenades in your vicinity. One ability many players don't know about is picking live grenades up & throwing them back. Omaha beach teaches you this in the part where you drag Zussman to the CCP station. Slowed down, running from the live Stielhandgranate thrown at you is impossible. Instead, a prompt appears saying "Throw Back", indicating to you that you can pick the grenade up & throw it away. Even if you don't catch on at first and die, this is a scripted sequence, meaning you must learn how to pick up & throw live grenades to advance; a useful skill for other parts of the game.
• Artificial Zombie: True to their Frankenstein-esque origins, the zombies are made from reattached body parts.
• Artistic License – Biology: Contrary to popular belief, wolves generally aren't a direct threat to humans and tend to flee when encountering them. The number of recorded wolf-related fatalities in North America are less than a few dozen over the past 300 years. So Paul Daniels had some really rotten luck.
• Artistic License – History:
  • Apparently, modern Call of Duty multiplayer requires there to be at least one semi-automatic shotgun with a detachable magazine. However, there are no shotguns during WWII that are like that (semi-auto shotguns existed since at least 1898, but a detachable magazine on a shotgun is a very modern development), so the developers gave the Toggle Action fully fictional detachable magazines, replacing the weapon's own unique internal tube magazine.
  • A number of weapons have their reload procedures altered, seemingly to streamline reloading. The Kar98k, Lee Enfield and Springfield all only reload with stripper clips, even when there is ammo still in the magazine that makes it impossible for a full stripper clip's worth of ammo to fit (though this has been the way for clips since the original Call of Duty, and for that matter every other game with clip-loaded firearms that doesn't pride itself on ridiculous realism), or when a scope is blocking the magazine^note In which case, the reload will look like the soldier shoved a clip in diagonally. Compare with other CoD entries like Call of Duty: World at War, in which scoped rifles can only reload by individual rounds. In the Lee-Enfield's case, it also reloads 10 rounds with just one 5-round clip, despite earlier games having it properly load with two clips. More than a few magazines were also depicted as being detachable when they're internal magazines that are not detachable, namely the Kbsp wz. 38M, and the Extended Magazine for the M1903 Springfield and Kar98k.
  • The real Omaha Beach landing took several hours to breach the German defenses and secure a beachhead, as a result of botched infantry landings and much of the armor not even making it. Much of the first wave was also wiped out or too disorganized to carry on the assault until the second wave arrived. Securing the German positions beyond the beach was an even more complicated battle that dragged on for days. The game instead streamlines the entire battle into something that more resembles Saving Private Ryan.
  • The SOE and Liberation missions have Daniels's regular infantry platoon participate in special operations with the British SOE and French Maquis. In reality, American troops who participated in such missions were members of the Office of Srategic Services, the American equivalent of the British SOE.
  • The platoon becomes suspicious of Zussman for being able to speak German, however this actually wasn't an uncommon skill for the time. In fact, the US Army actively utilized soldiers who could speak any German, which makes it even more odd that Zussman would've kept it hidden for so long.
  • Despite assuming platoon leadership after Turner's death, Pierson is never given a battlefield commission to officer, despite this being the proper procedure that was fairly common during the war.
  • The final battle at Remagen shows the Germans attempting to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge with explosives as the Americans are fighting across it, shortly followed by Stukas attempting to destroy it with bombing runs. In reality, the Germans detonated the explosives before the Americans could start to cross the bridge in force, and the Luftwaffe didn't begin attacking it until the week after the Americans captured it. The operation to capture the bridge was also executed by the 9th Armored Division, rather than the 1st Infantry Division as shown in-game.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • Pierson repeatedly says "over and out" over the radio, which in military radio etiquette, is a contradiction of terms. "Over" means, "I'm finished talking, respond," while "out" indicates the transmission is over with no response necessary.
  • Daniels says "Yes, sir!" to Pierson in the opening cutscene. Any self respecting NCO would take this as an insult.^note The traditional smartass reply for this faux-pas being, "I am not a 'sir'! I work for a living!"
• Badass Boast: The motto of the 1st Infantry Division: "No mission too difficult. No sacrifice too great. Duty first!"
• Black Vikings: Your multiplayer character can be any race or gender. Meaning you can have black female Wehrmacht soldiers.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The developers have stated that the game will be gorier than other titles in the series, citing that "Yes, WW2 was very gory." A good example? The top of a man's head gets graphically blown off right next to you in the very first mission.
  • Later when Daniels is tasked to cover Zussman by being a sniper from a church steeple, artillery starts raining on them and we see a soldier's head being literally blown off.
  • In the missions where Daniels' unit is tasked to take a hill, their position is discovered and the Germans once again fire artillery on them, resulting in Daniels losing consciousness and waking up next to a soldier killed by splinters from the nearby trees that got hit by the German barrage. Also in that scene is a dead paratrooper hanging from a tree; afterwards Daniels sees American soldiers surrendering to a German unit and being burned alive with a flamethrower.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: The German Tank Commander that fatally wounds Turner at the end of Hill 493 takes the time to monologue at Turner and Daniels instead of just shooting them, giving Daniels time to kill him with Turner's sidearm. Granted, the Tank Commander did need to stop to reload his gun, but keeps on talking even well after he finishes reloading.
• Book Ends: Zussman has to be rescued in the first and final missions of the game.
• The Bus Came Back: In a meta-sense: Not only is this the game that returns to a WWII setting since the release of Call of Duty: World at War nine years prior, but it's also the first game since Call of Duty 3 to have a theatre in the Western front, released eleven years prior (World at War focused in the Pacific and Eastern fronts only).
• Canon Welding: Due to the release of Call of Duty: Vanguard and its integration into Warzone, the timeline created by WWII serves as a prequel to both Black Ops (by extension serving as a side story to World at War) and Modern Warfare.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Surprisingly Turner (an officer) is portrayed as more sympathetic person compared to Sergeant Pierson, especially the former's A Father to His Men being a counter to the latter's The Neidermeyer.
• Character Development: For most of the campaign, Pierson is a cold, apathetic, and shell-shocked veteran who is mostly distant to the rest of Daniels' unit. By the push into Germany, however, thanks to Daniels showing him how determined he is at wanting to rescue Zussman by tearing up his honorable discharge papers, he mellows out, leads the attack on the Bridge at Remagen, and helps Daniels and the rest of the platoon in looking for leads on Zussman.
• Chekhov's Gun: The intel Daniels finds during the Battle of the Bulge, which mentions a Bridge at Remagen that is to be destroyed should the Allies advance to the Rhine. Sure enough, that bridge is the setting of the Final Battle for Daniels and his squad.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Literal gunmen, in fact. You can optionally rescue two captured Resistance Fighters and an about-to-be-executed Colonel Fischer while infiltrating the German occupation's HQ in Paris. If you're spotted during the Optional Stealth Sequence to plant bombs on the gates to the HQ, they'll show up to fight by your side so you don't get overrun by German forces.
• The Coconut Effect: The Omaha Beach level in the campaign is more of a recreation of the opening of Saving Private Ryan than the actual event. The length of the beach in the real event is actually very long, with the German bunkers being almost 800 yards (about 730 meters) from the water. Saving Private Ryan chose a much shorter beach to film the scene for practical and artistic concerns, and this image stuck with people on what Omaha Beach is supposed to look like.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Based on the reveal trailer, this game will have a violent and gritty feel more in line with Call of Duty: World at War than the first three Call of Duty games set in WWII.
  • The Zombies mode in WWII seems to be a much more horrific experience, especially when compared to the wacky Zombies in Spaceland from Infinite Warfare.
• Dead Person Conversation: After he gets separated from his squad in the Hürtgen Forest, Daniels, likely suffering a concussion from the fall he took, hallucinates his brother, Paul, giving him the courage he needs to keep going and saying that his girlfriend and unborn son need him.
• Developer's Foresight: It is possible, although extremely difficult, to destroy a care package plane with a glide bomb.
• The Dying Walk: As shown in a flashback, Daniels' older brother Paul, after getting away from the wolf that attacked him, manages to stand back up, put his hat back on, give a short speech to him, and then dies while walking a short distance attempting to head back home with him.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After almost a year of struggling through the cities, towns, hills, and forests of Western Europe, Daniels and the rest of his squad go through hell and back, and succeed in saving a barely-alive Zussman from execution by an SS officer. The former then makes it all the way home, to see his newborn son.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Averted, due to the main cast being members of the 1st Infantry Division rather than being from the Airborne or the Rangers like previous main Call of Duty games set in WWII Europe.
• Elite Mooks: Nazi Waffen SS troops start showing up in the last few levels. Realistically, they're not noticeably physically tougher than standard troops, but tend to be better equipped (often using the STG 44 assault rifle or, more inexplicably, the toggle-action shotgun loaded with incendiary rounds).
• Epic Tank-on-Tank Action: Aachen has Sherman tanks engage German Panzer IV and King Tiger tanks in the bombed out streets.
• Flamethrower Backfire:
  • Played straight in the campaign, where M2 Flamethrower and Flammenwerfer 35-wielding NPC soldiers can suffer this fate when they're shot.
  • Averted with Daniels and in multiplayer, where the flamethrowers don't explode and kill the operators.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Like all Call of Duty games, this game don't shy away from this. One notable instance is when Perez shouts "Mierda", as well as this exchange in the hotel basement entrance.
  Daniels: Shit!
  German Soldier: Scheiße!
• Final Battle: The Bridge at Remagen.
• Frankenstein's Monster: Unlike the zombies of the World at War/Black Ops series, which are supernatural in origins, WWII's zombies are created by reattaching body parts of various corpses and reanimating the corpses through a scientific method that affects the neurological system, making them this. Several of these zombies even have metallic appendages that are designed to hold their body together sticking out.
• Gorn: Not quite to the level of certain other games in the series, but limbs get severed and bodies get mulched in the extreme violence of warfare. The touch-down on Omaha Beach has a man lose his head directly in front of you, and the fourth mission has one unlucky fellow get hit with a flak cannon shot as the game shows you the gored half of the stump.
• Great Offscreen War: Played for Drama as a Noodle Incident. Pierson lost all of his men in Kasserine Pass, but we never get to hear the details. Multiple characters use Kasserine Pass to criticize Pierson's Jerkass behaviors.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Well, who do you think the Nazi officers who give you trouble report to?
• Heroic Sacrifice: Turner, after being gutshot, willingly stays behind to hold off the German advance while his men retreat from Hill 493.
• High-Altitude Battle: Part of the Battle of the Bulge mission has a segment where P-47 Thunderbolts are tasked with protecting a flight of B-17s on their way to bomb targets deep in Germany.
• Imagine Spot: While Daniels is recovering after failing to rescue Zussman, we see a Time Skip cutscene of him returning home to his wife and talking with his brother. The Reveal showing that his brother was Dead All Along further confirms this whole thing to be an imaginary scenario if he wasn't and he really did get discharged.
• Ink-Suit Actor: The majority of the characters resemble the actors and actresses portraying them.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Pierson is an asshat (most of the time) but he's not wrong when he tells Turner that the mission comes first and that all of them are expendable. Or when he tells Daniels that his maverick attitude isn't going to fly.
• La Résistance: The Trope Namer, the French resistance, are featured in the campaign.
• Meaningful Background Event: In the first mission, when Red is still on the boat to Omaha beach, an artillery shell hits the boat next to his, setting it on fire & causing it to veer off course. You can watch it keep going in the distance, but eventually it veers right, crashing into your boat.
• Mood Whiplash: Most of the time, the story campaign has a dark, gore-soaked quasi-realistic tone (a la Saving Private Ryan). But then there's the pulpier bit where you stealth-kill dumb enemies, crash a train, and play a French resistance fighter impersonating a German woman in the middle of the Nazi headquarters in Paris (also, neither you nor none of your comrades die or get seriously injured during this more adventurous part of the game). These two missions, (S.O.E. and Liberation) feel like part of a different game.
• My Girl Back Home: Daniels has one, who's later revealed to be expecting their firstborn.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Daniels' one was failing to shoot the wolf that caused his older brother to bleed to death. It serves as his prime motivation for wanting to rescue Zussman at the end of the game.
  • Pierson's was failing to save the rest of his trapped platoon in Kasserine, and getting the men with him killed in the botched rescue attempt, all the while doing this under direct violation of orders.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Daniels failed to save Paul because he couldn't shoot the wolf. But at the end of the game when rescuing Zussman, Daniels finds himself in the same situation. When Daniels finds Zussman he sees Metz standing over Zussman, ready to execute him. At this moment Daniels remembers Paul calling for him to "take the shot." This time, Daniels manages to save Zussman by shooting Metz.
• The Neidermeyer: Sergeant Pierson's callous nature towards his men draws ire to his subordinates, which Turner has to keep his command in check until his demise in the Hürtgen Forest. Though he hadn't been this way until his disregard for the orders to retreat so that he could rescue his men cost him more men, changed him a lot.
• No One Gets Left Behind: The campaign has Daniels and his squad determined to rescue a captured Zussman, whose been taken to a labor camp deep in Germany, and whom Daniels had promised not to leave behind.
• No Swastikas: In multiplayer, the Swastika will be replaced by the Iron Cross (mainly because of German censorship laws, which only allow the display of Swastikas under very specific circumstances).
• Old-School Dogfight: The Battle of the Bulge has P-47 Thunderbolts and BF-109 "Gustav" fighters engaging one another over German airspace.
• PG Explosives: In keeping with the Bloodier and Gorier tone of WWII, this trope is averted unlike in previous entries. Anyone standing in close proximity to an explosion will have their limbs blown off in graphic fashion.
• Politically Correct History:
  • Thanks to Character Customization, multiplayer mode lets you play as black soldiers or female soldiers or even black female soldiers for all sides, including Nazi Germany. While black soldiers were present on the American side (and Hispanic, and Japanese, and Native American.....), female soldiers on the battlefront are beyond what actually happened.
  • Averted in the campaign, which strives as much as possible toward the historically accurate approach. When an African-American soldier joins the unit around the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he is treated as an oddity ("I can't believe they let them fight," one soldier remarks).
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Unlike previous entries in the series, this time around we see the absolute worst aspects of Nazi Germany front and center. Zussman, a Jewish-American soldier, is captured by SS soldiers, and rather than be sent to a POW camp like other captured Americans, is instead sent on a train to a concentration camp.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Davis, who, rather than court martial Daniels for disobeying Pierson's orders, recommends him for a Bronze Star and a ticket home, for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge. This is mostly due to finding important intel, as well as his attempt to rescue Zussman in the face of being outnumbered and outgunned.
• Regenerating Health: With regards to singleplayer, averted. Instead of just walking out the wounds, the player now needs to find first-aid kits and health packs just like in the original game and its United Offensive expansion. New to this game, however, is the ability to call out for allies to get medical treatment in the event a kit or health pack can't be found.
• Revisiting the Roots:
  • Not only is this the first Call of Duty title to take place in WWII since 2008's World at War, this is also the first title since the 2003 original that doesn't feature Regenerating Health, at least in the campaign.
  • In addition, the series' Zombies mode is returning to the roots sprouted in World at War; the Zombies go back to being Nazi Zombies, created by the Axis Forces as a superweapon, instead of being the result of a Lovecraftian superpower as in Black Ops III. The Zombies mode is also going for a more explicit Survival Horror approach, also akin to World at War.
• Rule of Fun: As mention above in The Coconut Effect, the game already compresses the size of Omaha Beach to fit with people's preconceptions about it. The multiplayer Operation Neptune compresses the beach even further for gameplay purposes, creating a ludicrously short Omaha Beach at just 30 meters.
• Sergeant Rock: Pierson actually starts the game off like this, being far more reasonable and even complimenting and showing concern for Zussman after he comes back from his stab wound. It's only during the battle of Hill 493 that he goes off the rails.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Pierson, who lost several men in his platoon while attempting to rescue the rest of his unit at Kasserine.
• Shout-Out:
  • The D-Day landing sequence contains many visual references to several WWII films like Saving Private Ryan, as well as The Longest Day and The Big Red One. The latter in particular is due to the main characters of that film also being from the 1st Infantry Division, as well as also landing on a beach under heavy German fire.
    • A further reference to the The Big Red One is the epilogue, where a squad finds out about the concentration camps during their advance, and what exactly the Nazis did to the Jews. It even has Daniels killing a surviving German soldier in the vicinity of the camp they find Zussman in.
  • The 3rd level involving Rousseau and the British SOE has a lot of elements reminiscent of older Medal of Honor games, complete with officers and sentries asking for identity papers.
  • The final level is a huge one to The Bridge at Remagen, down to the Germans opening fire on an advancing American convoy, and the bridge Daniels' squad is on still being mostly intact even after the Germans activate the charges on said bridge.
    • Doubles as a Call-Back to the final level in Call of Duty: Finest Hour, where the bridge in Remagen was also the final mission of the whole game and the American campaign.
• Shown Their Work:
  • American tankers are shown switching from the 75mm armed M4A2 Sherman to the more powerfully armed 76mm M4A3 Sherman, the latter of which only became more common around late 1944, which is exactly when they start appearing frequently in the campaign.
  • While the American armed forces weren't officially desegregated until after WWII, around the time of the Battle of the Bulge some units were unofficially integrated in order to bolster manpower, hence Howard's appearance.
  • The epilogue takes place in a concentration camp in Berga on April 4. The Berga Concentration Camp is a real place, holding American POWs who were forced into slave labor. It was liberated in real life on April 4, and yes, it was commanded by a sergeant named Erwin Metz. Two POWs are tied to posts and are found dead standing. This could be based on the true story where two POWs in Berga who were captured when trying to escape were forced to stand in front of the barracks for two days without food or water. Also, Zussman was sent there from Bad Orb, which could be referring to the Stalag IX-B POW camp near the town of Bad Orb, which supplied workers to Berga.
  • On the USS Texas multiplayer map, which is presumably set prior to the D-Day landings, one will notice that, alongside the transport ships sailing with the Texas, is another battleship, the USS Arkansas. This battleship also took part in the Normandy landings, and served in a similar shore bombardment role as the Texas.
  • The Fighter group that Weber, the P-47 Thunderbolt pilot from the Battle of the Bulge is assigned to, is an actual fighter group that fought over Western Europe with the P-47 Thunderbolt. And like that level, their primary job was providing close air support for ground troops.
  • The War mode multiplayer maps are in fact based on actual Operations. Operation Neptune is naturally based on the Normandy landings, Operation Breakout is based on Operation Cobra, and Operation Griffin (notably the only War mode map where the Axis team is attacking) is based on Operation Greif (German for Griffin), a German special operation during the Battle of the Bulge.
  • In multiplayer, the glide bomb killstreak has a different appearance depending on your team. If you are on the Axis, your bomb will be a Fritz X. If you are on the Allies, your bomb will be a Azon.
  • The heroes in Nazi Zombies are working for a group called the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, a very little known group whose whole role during the war was to preserve particularly notable historical artworks and places.
  • In Kill Confirmed, the Allies and the Axis drop different dogtags, both based on the identification tags from their respective faction i.e. U.S. Army and Wehrmacht.
• Storming the Beaches: The first mission of the campaign is the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • While a tank like the King Tiger completely outclasses the Sherman as a tank-killer, in the narrow, ruined streets of a city, its massive gun and size proves to be more of a disadvantage and a hindrance when the tank can't be moved into a firing position. And while its front armor can't be penetrated by a Sherman, the thinner side and rear armor is still vulnerable to the 75mm gun of the latter, especially in a close-quarter urban landscape.
  • Knocked out tank equals dead crew members, right? Wrong. Daniels and Turner find this out the hard way when the tank commander of a King Tiger emerges from his knocked out tank and badly wounds the latter.
  • Daniels one-man chase to try and rescue Zussman from captivity during the Battle of the Bulge is this. Despite his determination and managing to catch up to the rest of the German convoy in his jeep, all he ends up doing is getting badly wounded and almost killed, while failing to get to the truck Zussman is held in in time.
• Tank Goodness: American Shermans, German Panzer IVs, and a King Tiger are shown and featured prominently in promotional material released.
• Tanks for Nothing: Surprisingly enough, it's the King Tiger that gets this treatment throughout the campaign. While it is shown that it can easily pick off Shermans in one hit, its also shown that its easily vulnerable to infantry armed with anti-tank weapons, as well as having vulnerable side and rear armor that a Sherman's gun can still penetrate, especially in a close-quarters fight. Heck, the Panzer IV gets much more respect and achievements in the levels it appears in.
• The Theme Park Version: The game heavily condenses major historical battles that lasted for hours, days, or weeks into single missions, particularly the Omaha Beach landing, the liberation of Paris, the battle of the Bulge, and the battle of Remagen. D-Day has the first wave achieve a quick breakthrough at Omaha Beach (and the inland behind the beach), Liberation has the Maquis freeing Paris from the German garrison in one night, Battle of the Bulge has the Germans defeated after launching one massive wave attack, and The Rhine has the Americans seize both sides of the Ludendorff Bridge and defend it against air bombings in one single attack.
• Those Wacky Nazis: It's a World War 2 game, what do you expect? This is the first WWII era Call of Duty game to give any characterization whatsoever to the Germans. There's a cultured, despicable officer named Heinrich (who murdered Rousseau's whole family), a Resistance-aligned officer named Fischer, and a brutal SS officer named Metz.
• Token Enemy Minority:
  • Zussman turns out be part German.
  • Fischer, a German officer secretly working for the British, is Rousseau's and Crowley's contact within the German-held Paris HQ.
• Token Minority:
  • Howard (An African American) to Daniels' unit by Ardennes. His seemingly out of place in an all-white unit during army segregation is Lampshaded with Daniel and Aiello being surprised that they were allowed to fight at all.
  • Zussman is the only soldier of Jewish descent in Daniels' unit.
• Urban Warfare:
  • Aachen, the first German city the Americans come across. It's defended from block to block by German forces, and the Americans are forced to clear them out of each house and room.
  • Before that, there's Marigny, a French town Daniels and his squad must take as part of the opening phase of Operation Cobra.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The last stage of the Operation Husky war mode map in Multiplayer teleports everyone from a standard objective sequence to an airplane deathmatch.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The various "heroic actions" available in the campaign allow the player to go the extra mile in being a good guy, whether it be by dragging injured comrades to safety, rescuing ones who are about to be killed, or giving enemies a chance to surrender.
• Video Game Flame Throwers Suck: Finally averted in a Call Of Duty game, as the M2 or Flammenwerfer 35 will become your best friend to deter blitzing Germans.
  • Even in the multiplayer it shines as a score-streak option, as the damage is massive, isn't outdone by normal weaponry except sometimes shotguns, and the flame effect practically blinds players being hit with it.
• Winter Warfare: The Battle of the Bulge, of which two levels take place in, happens in the dead of winter.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Once upon a time the mainstay ability to hold your breath to steady sniper rifles was, in the multiplayer, exclusive to the Mountain Division. This has since been made a natural ability for everyone again with patches.

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