About the game
Call of Duty: World at War is a 2008 first-person shooter developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the fifth main game in the Call of Duty series and the fourth to be set during World War II. Activision announced it in June 2008 and released it in November 2008 for PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360 and Wii. Other games under the World at War name came out for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2, with different stories and missions.
The story is told mostly from two sides: U.S. Marine Raider Private C. Miller in the Pacific and Soviet Red Army Private Dimitri Petrenko on the Eastern Front. It is a mature, open-ended shooter that otherwise plays like earlier Call of Duty games. You carry two weapons plus grenades, take cover to recover health, and can find thirteen hidden death cards in the campaign that unlock cheats for co-op. Multiplayer has eight modes, including Team Deathmatch and capture the flag, plus vehicles. Ground War supports up to 18 players.
The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows versions include Nazi Zombies, the first Zombies mode in any Call of Duty game. One to four players hold off waves of undead enemies, starting with an M1911 pistol and spending points to open up the map and buy better weapons. The first map, Nacht der Untoten, starts by itself after the last campaign mission. Zombies became a mainstay of every game Treyarch made afterwards.
Development took about two years, twice as long as Treyarch's Call of Duty 3. The game runs on an improved version of the Call of Duty 4 engine, with more destructible environments, fire that spreads from the flamethrower, dismemberment and burning on character models. Sean Murray wrote the music. Kiefer Sutherland voices Sergeant Roebuck and Gary Oldman voices Sergeant Reznov. A multiplayer beta ran on Xbox 360 from October 10, 2008 for people who pre-ordered.
Critics gave it generally favourable reviews, praising its intensity and the addition of co-op, while some felt it was too close to earlier Call of Duty games. It was the second best-selling game in the United States in November 2008, with over 1.41 million copies sold on Xbox 360, and the Xbox 360 version was the sixth best-selling game of 2008 there with over 2.75 million. Later critics have often ranked it among the best of the series' World War II games, and its characters carried over into Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 84 out of 100 (Xbox 360). Individual reviews: Game Informer 8.8/10, GameSpot 8.5/10, GameTrailers 8.7/10, IGN 9.2/10, Official Xbox Magazine 7.5/10, Official Xbox Magazine UK 9/10, X-Play 4/5.
Extra content
Three map packs came out in 2009, each with a new Nazi Zombies map. Map Packs 2 and 3 carry 10 achievements each. The Xbox 360 Store closed on July 29, 2024, so they can no longer be bought there.
- Makin Day (free title update): A daylight version of the Makin map, bug fixes and more detail in the stats display.
- Map Pack 1: Three multiplayer maps (Nightfire, Knee Deep, Station) and the Nazi Zombies map Verruckt. No achievements.
- Map Pack 2: Three multiplayer maps (Banzai, Corrosion, Sub Pens), the Nazi Zombies map Shi No Numa, and 10 achievements (250 gamerscore).
- Map Pack 3: Three multiplayer maps (Battery, Breach, Revolution), the Nazi Zombies map Der Riese, and 10 achievements (250 gamerscore).
Good to know
- Nazi Zombies starts by itself after the last campaign mission, and it is where the Zombies mode began.
- The Xbox 360 list has 66 achievements worth 1,500 gamerscore: 46 in the base game worth 1,000, and 10 each in Map Pack 2 and Map Pack 3. Map Pack 1 has none.
- The two multiplayer prestige achievements, It's All about Prestige and Go Get Some Sun, are worth no gamerscore.
- Collecting all thirteen death cards in the campaign is the Grave Robber achievement.
- The Collector's Edition with the canteen and tin was only made for Windows and Xbox 360.
- Map Pack 1 sold over 1 million copies in its first week, which set an Xbox Live record for weekly downloads.
- Three base-game achievements need online co-op over Xbox Live: Get Your Left Foot Wet, Get Your Right Foot Wet and Blue Ribbon.
Made by
Director Corky Lehmkuhl, Producer Pat Dwyer, Designer David Vonderhaar, Artist Colin Whitney, Writer Craig Houston, Composer Sean Murray.
