Game Chronicles Magazine

Call of Duty delivers the gritty realism and cinematic intensity of World War II's epic battlefield moments like never before - through the eyes of citizen soldiers and unsung heroes from an alliance of countries who together helped shape the course of modern history.

Play through the chaos of battle as part of a well-trained squad, that lays down covering fire and pulls its wounded to safety. In addition to authentic squad movements and tactics, each soldier's distinct personality and training comes out on the battlefield.

No one soldier or nation single-handedly won the war. For the first time, Call of Duty captures the war from multiple perspectives, through the eyes of American, British and Russian soldiers. Battle through 24 missions spanning 4 interconnected historical campaigns. Take on mission objectives ranging from sabotage and all-out assault to stealth, vehicle combat and rescue. Authentic weapons, locations, vehicles and sounds of war all contribute to the realism, immersing you in the most intense World War II experience yet.

Game Chronicles goes inside this exciting new game with an exclusive interview by John Carswell.

GCM: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Please get us started by introducing yourself and telling us a bit about the team behind Call of Duty.
Zied Rieke: I am Zied Rieke, I am the Lead Designer at Infinity Ward.
Infinity Ward is comprised of 23 developers, 20 of which worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, including all of the production leads.

GCM: World War II-based games have found huge popularity as of late and a plethora of titles has been released to meet the demand. What do you feel triggered this resurgence of interest in WWII and how will Call of Duty differentiate itself from the competition?
Zied Rieke: World War II has always been popular. There are times that war-inspired films or games come out, which bring World War II back to the forefront.
Call of Duty will differentiate itself by three key features. First in Call of Duty you don’t fight the war by yourself. Secondly, World War II wasn’t the Americans vs. the Germans and in Call of Duty we show the war from the perspective of the British and the Russians, in addition to the Americans. Third Call of Duty is more intense and fun than the other titles, try the demo and see for yourself.

GCM: When setting out to create Call of Duty, what aspects of War did you most want to convey to the player?
Zied Rieke: The fun ones. About ninety percent of World War II was freezing in a foxhole while someone shoots artillery at you all day and all night. While about ten percent was digging that fox hole in the rain or freezing cold or while some is shooting artillery at you.
But seriously, the aspects of the war we wanted to impress upon the player is that you need to work together with your buddies to survive and you don’t want to run straight toward enemy machine gun positions.

GCM: A number of games have attempted to recreate the feel of being a member of a squad but ultimately fell short due to limited A.I. How will you avoid this pitfall, and could you please give us a few examples of Call of Duty’s A.I. higher functions?
Zied Rieke: Well most games with a squad completely avoid the AI issue by making the player tell the squad what to do. In Call of Duty it’s the other way around, the squad tells the player want to do. Our friendly squad mates truly understand the environment and move from cover to cover, which not only makes them tougher in battle, but also keeps them from getting in your way. Our AI also understands suppression fire will become suppressed. This means that you will be more successful if you and/or your teammates fire over their heads and force the enemy to keep their heads down, before you cross open areas to attack.

GCM: What can you tell us about the vehicles in Call of Duty and how much the player and A.I. can interact with them?
Zied Rieke: The player will encounter a variety of Axis and Allied vehicles – dug-in halftracks, groups of tanks massed against each other, rides in military and civilian vehicles, as well as a glider landing. There are several “passenger” levels, in which an NPC is operates the vehicle while the player does the shooting. Later in the game, the player is given control of a Russian T-34 medium battle tank, which is only one tank in a larger column pushing the Germans back toward Berlin in the final months of the war.

GCM: What sort of terrain and missions will the player be faced with?
Zied Rieke: The environments in Call of Duty range from a completely authentic built to scale World War II battleship anchored off shore in Norway, to a heavily damaged Reichstag in the middle of Berlin. Our Pegasus Bridge is nearly a photo-perfect copy of the real thing. Other accurate recreations of real places include the Eder Dam in Germany, Pavlov's House and Red Square in Stalingrad, Carentan and Brecourt Manor in Normandy (both known from “Band of Brothers”). All those locations I've named were all extensively researched using photos and maps of the real places.
Our missions include huge battles like Stalingrad, defensive actions like Pegasus Bridge plus a couple of driving and riding in a vehicle missions like our mission, where you escape on the back of the truck through the alps while being chased by Germans in trucks, Kubelwagons and motorcycles.

GCM: Please tell us about the storyline driving Call of Duty. Will your success and the success/survivability of teammates affect its progression in anyway?
Zied Rieke: If you and your team aren’t successful you won’t survive the mission, which puts a real damper on the storyline.

GCM: As for multiplayer features, is there any chance that we’ll see team-based, co-op games based on the single player campaigns?
Zied Rieke: Yes, most of the multiplayer levels are based off of the single player missions and most of our multiplayer game modes are team based, so you will definitely see that.

GCM: On the audio/visual side of things, what is being done to convey the intensity of War?
Zied Rieke: For the weapon sounds, we’ve recorded single shots, bursts, near misses, and impacts on various surfaces, using live rounds with all of the weapons represented in the game. The German soldiers all speak German as opposed to accented English, giving the battles a more authentic feel. We used music more sparingly for greater dramatic impact with some of it being event-based, instead of always playing tracks repeatedly in the background non-stop. Some levels, like the St. Mere Eglise demos, were so frenetic and packed with the sounds of combat created by the actions of the player and AI that there wasn’t any need for music to liven things up! All of the levels also use appropriate background ambient tracks to convey that the war is happening all around the player.
From a visual standpoint, we consulted with re-enactment groups to get details such as uniforms and equipment as correct as possible. Weapon skins are taken from photos of the real thing. We used photos, archival footage, and descriptions in written accounts of the war to create the environments and key moments in each level. The bullet impact effects are fantastic, kicking off large plumes of dust – you’ll know when you’re being fired upon and the rounds start impacting the bricks next to your head.
Parts of the action appear to take place in areas very distant from the player, whether it’s the sight of paratroopers dropping en masse on D-Day or Russian artillery pounding German positions from afar with their fire lighting up the horizon – it’s another way to expand the scope of the environments, so that the player feels like there are other things going on out there and that he’s not winning the war by himself.

GCM: Lastly, what would say to those concerned that Call of Duty will not add enough to the basic gameplay mechanics laid out in Medal of Honor?
Zied Rieke: I would say, lets play some Call of Duty multiplayer and you try to beat me without aiming down the sight or going prone.

GCM: Thank you again for your time! Would you care to leave our readers with any last impressions?
Zied Rieke: This project has been a rewarding experience for the team. We really set out some ambitious goals for what the players experience would be and hit them all. The team has a lot of pride in what we have created. Thanks for the chat.