Call of Duty WWII Beta

After a few years of going further and further into the future with their warfare games, Activison and Sledgehammer games have decided to go back into the past and into a period of time that most Call of Duty fans have been begging for for the last few years. World War 2. The private beta for CoD: WW2 finally dropped on Xbox One this weekend, so I've been able to have a little pay around!

Call of Duty: World War 2 feels like the CoD games of Modern Warfare and World at War, the ones that fans of FPS games fell in love with. The beta has so far felt smooth and fluid, the maps once again finally have a bit of space to provide snipers a bit of breathing room but aren't so big that if like me you want to run and gun, you're not going to get constantly caught out. Some favourite game modes have returned as staples to the series, but Sledgehammer have brought out one or two new ones to get you're teeth into and the customisation has potential outside of you're usual gun skins. 

The first thing you will have to do when entering multiplayer is to chose your skill class! CoD World War 2 has 5 different skill classes these being Infantry, Airborne, Armoured, Mountain and Expeditionary and each has their own specials abilities weapon preferences, Before you chose which class you want to use, you'll see a recruitment video trying to explain to you why you need to join this group, which I felt was a nice touch. 

One you've made your choice, it's then on to choosing what your character will look like. In the beta you currently have the choice of 2 female characters and 3 male, though with the amount of space available to you in this screen, I'd actually be surprised if there wasn't a larger variety to choose from in the full release. During this customisation you can also choose your emblem, add a clan tag and your desired... . The customisation doesn't stop there as you still have your weapon attachments for when you unlock them and your kill streaks as in the previous games.

Staple game modes such as Deathmatch, Domination and Hardpoint all return and Sledgehammer has tried to replicate the formula that won Battlefield so much love with their War game mode. War is a 6 vs 6 mode that is broken down into four stages. You must complete the objective your on otherwise you lose. You have one round of defending and then switch to attacking the next, this has so far been my favourite mode. I'm fully hoping and expecting there to be a vast range of maps for War as it's been the most fun I've had in a long time with Call of Duty games. 

The game play is fast as you'd expect for Call of Duty and hitbox recognition is pretty good. All the weapons for each class seemed fairly balanced, though I've found the incendiary shotgun shells for the Expeditionary class are both annoying and have a stupid amount of range. Sniping also seems to be harder than it had in the past but it's still fun. The only thing that is missing is flinching, which should help show who got shot first in a 1v1.  

There hasn't been any information so far in regards to the main modes such as the campaign mode but considering it has been the main focus within the last 3 years, I fully expect it to be insanely good such as Modern Warfare and World at War. Esport has a big place coming into the full build with ranked competition modes and the link with Gamebattles which is great to see and everyone's favourite mini game mode of Zombies returns to the World War style which it first came from.

Overall I'm really looking forward to the full build of the game when it's released in November. Having the Call of Duty return that everyone wanted is only a good thing and I'm really looking to see what route Sledgehammer go.