DUTY STALLS
Sledgehammer tries to put twists on the more familiar encounters
Once again, Call of Duty spins its wheel of war, and for the sixth time in the series’ history, the needle has landed on ‘World War the Second’. Call of Duty has always been most comfortable booting Hitler right in the Panzerschrecks, nestled cosily in the history of the victors, safe in the knowledge that the baddies really were bad. But it’s also the most difficult setting from which to build something new. There are only so many World War II battles, after all, and Call of Duty has covered them exhaustively over the years.
It’s a problem that Vanguard fails to resolve, which is a shame because there are hints of more interesting ideas amid the game’s familiar sights and sounds. But in the end Vanguard submits to expectation. There are certain things a Call of Duty game must be, and Sledgehammer ticks those boxes in dependable but unadventurous fashion.
The campaign is ideas and execution. The story revolves around a group of special forces agents plucked from different theatres of the war, who are dispatched on a secret mission to Berlin in the final days of the Reich. The action commences with a raid on a German train while fires from the Russian advance rage in the distance. This rolls seamlessly into an assault on a submarine dock, where the group learns about a secret Nazi operation known as Project Phoenix.
