Call of Duty: WWII gets November 3 release date and first full trailer

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

It's official: Call of Duty will dip its toes back into World War II this November. Activision and Sledgehammer Games revealed today that Call of Duty: WWII will officially launch on November 3.

Alongside a livestream reveal, Activision gave us a taste of what the game's story has in store:

Call of Duty: WWII focuses on the actions of a squad from 1944 to 1945, but will also touch on events from 1940 to 1944 to help set the stage for the narrative and establish the characters. It takes place in the European theater of conflict, at a time when the Allied forces were finally starting to gather strength on their march into Germany. You and your squad will fight your way through occupied France, Belgium, and across the Rhine into Germany.

Sledgehammer and Activision are promising a grounded experience that returns to the series' roots. That follows on from last year's Infinite Warfare, which failed to garner the same excitement as previous entries in the series with its futuristic combat. Call of Duty: WWII will represent the franchise's first steps back into the second World War since 2008's World at War.

Call of Duty: WWII is up for pre-order now, and Activision is promising private multiplayer beta access to anyone who orders early. And speaking of multiplayer, more information will be revealed at this year's E3.

Updated April 26, 2017: If there was any suspicion that a trip back to World War 2 would mean no zombies, you can also put those worries to rest.

See at the Xbox Store (opens in new tab)

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

44 Comments
  • Cool! I love they are back to WWII but was it necessary to go back to Normandy? There are so many untapped possibilities never explored in a WWII videogame that I would rather have a different scenario.
  • should be called: Medal Of Honor: Reloaded
  • I'd gladly buy a reloaded version of Medal of Honour...
  • Ditto! Best stories are in MOH
  • Multiplayer!
  • Wow just in time for Christmas, who saw that coming...
  • and for Scorpio
  • Pass
  • Not been excited for a COD release for quite a while now but I'm stoked for this one. Just a shame it took the success of Battlefield 1 for them to realise that's what the fans wanted and never listened to them themselves
  • Just looks un-inspired...
  • Not pre-ordering until I can confirm this isn't a multiplayer focused crapfest like Battlefield 1 and Battlefront.
  • Battlefield 1 a crapfest, are you kidding? It had one of the best campaigns I've played in a long time, it had good variety through out.
  • "one of the best campaigns"? I beat the bloody thing in less than 24 hours. That "free weekend play" Xbox gave of Battlefield a couple of weeks ago? Yeah. That was enough for me to beat the entire "campaign" mode in Battlefield 1.   If that's the best one you've played in a while, I'm really sorry to hear it.
  • These games are built around multiplayer, if you want single player you need to look elsewhere.
  • Then they shouldn't be marketing it as "back to roots". Because the original CoD's were not built about God damned multiplayer...
  • Really? I always found the campaigns sorely lacking.
  • Gotta agree here, there's no reason we can't get a top notch single player together with the typical multiplayer that CoD brings every year anyway. I just hope this trailer isn't indicative of the final release, too much focus on drama and a fight against pure evil...I just want a realistic portrayal of what happened, with characters who feel (and sound) like real people.
  • This is going to look great on Scorpio.
  • The game os being developed for 2 and a half year, they don't made it because of bf1. I stopped in MW2 now I'm excited to play cod again.
  • People are still probably going to unjustly hate this game.
  • can we play as German? most important.
  • Vaterland muss größer sein..
  • Looks cool but even from the trailer I just feel like I will always prefer BF1, love that game and not getting the same excited feel here. Zombies are cool though
  • CoD: Yawn II
  • Has Activison the balls to show allied war crimes too or is it just another heroic WW2 plot?
    As a german I love to kick Nasi asses but most american movies and films are just too much heroism.
  • Germany started this crap, the allies with Americas help finished it.  German and Japanese atrocities are all well documented so I don't know if you are trolling or what.
  • yes of cause they are. Here in Germany it's part of our culture to always remember our atrocities. That's the huge difference between Germany and Japan after WW2. We see it as our duty to prevent anything like this to ever happen again.
    But I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about the fact that all games and most films show the Americans as the error free heroes and the basic German soldier as scruple, crazy monsters.
    But in fact the war was fought by normal men on both sides (I don't mean the SS). That's an important fact. We always think something like this could never happen again because nobody could be that evil. But in reality most soldiers were just soldiers. Just like today.There were war crimes on both sides. But the USA seems to have problems with that. They can show Russians burning defenceless German soldiers (CoD WaW) but not their own people?
    War shouldn't be glorified.
    Something like this would be great: The Germans are killing and torturing some American soldiers and then there's the American revenge unscrupulously and brutal. There are too many people who think war is something honorable. Sometimes war is necessary (like to free Europe from the Nasis) but it's never honorable.
  • Well nationalities aside for a second we're human so yes both sides committed atrocities.
  • How dare you assume my humanity!
  • Well...it wasn't Germany's idea to self-humiliate itself with a Treaty signed in Versailles. Nor Germany's idea to pay so much in reparation costs that its economy crumbled to the ground and allowed for the rising of the NSDAP. So...you might want to think twice about whose really to blame for WWII.   As for German and Japanese atrocities, yes. No denying those. Or, you know, the American concentration camps for Japanese people (or people resembling Japanese people), and the Soviet Gulags and ethnic cleanings. Again...glass houses and all of that ;)
  • A German campaign might be a great idea. I would prefer a German WW1 campaign in battlefield but a German WW2 campaign in CoD could also be pretty good. Starting with the euphoria at the beginning of the war and the first victorious battles in Poland and France (maybe with some war crimes) and then the horror of Stalingrad and the defeat of the German Reich. Maybe the last mission as a child soldier in Berlin. Losing a war is always a powerful message. In Germany we have a bunch of books and films about the German perspective in WW1 and WW2. I think "All Quiet on the Western Front" is pretty popular around Europe.
    The contrast between the euphoria at the begging of the war and the harsh, brutal reality of war is always a great background for a plot.
  • As a German I would expect you to know how to spell ****...You know...as in NAtional-soZIalistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei?   That said, yeah, I'd like to play as a German for a change too. Unless the entire game is around multiplayer in which case, I won't even bother with it.
  • The word Nasi (with z) is censored on Windows central...
  • If you're talking about Communists raping nearly two million German women, it would be really interesting. Or the part where the Communists finance the rise of Hitler and Mussolini.
  • Hey remember when the Americans owned everything? That's WWII for you! XD
  • Always good to kill nazis.
  • I'm a history fan boy. I am excited as anyone for a return to REAL combat and not comic book crap. Normandy will be epic as usual, but I almost wished they did Operation Husky, Torch or Avalanche instead. Can you imagine landing on Sicily and working with the mob? or crossing the Rapido river and assaulting Monte Cassino or fighting the Desert Fox......so much history...so little time to make games for each bit of it.
  • My dad was at the Rapido River with the 36th.
  • Wow. My Great Uncle was with the 10th Mountaineers and left the war after being severely injured in the Po Valley in Northern Italy. Great men.
  • Nice. this time they didn't release the game yet and the graphics are already "nerfed"
  • Everything thing is copied😆.....even that flame thrower😝
  • This look amazing.
  • Apparently regenerative health is out. So it's back to COD1 in that regard.
  • From this trailer, I think this game will focus on US Army 1st Infantry Division, aka the Big Red One, but I do remember back in 2005 CoD series had a game on this unit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_2:_Big_Red_One , well this game had some flaws that makes players feel difficult to play.......