I can already hear the fanboys crying out in unison and know this is going to be an unpopular opinion. Before you feed into your own anger, know that my very first article here at Pure PlayStation was this. That way you’ll know what you’re getting into. So here is my opening statement: Call of Duty WW2 has nearly every single problem that made all the bad past Call of Dutys terrible.
Now I haven’t really enjoyed the Call of Duty franchise for one reason or another. There hasn’t really been a wonderful multiplayer experience in the series since the first Modern Warfare. No, I’m not demanding all CoDs stay the same (although you could argue more than half the franchise has done that very thing). Nearly every multiplayer component to the series since then has been plagued with technical problems, bad design, or some overpowered weapon ruining months of gaming. Since WW2’s announcement I was actually hopeful things would be different this time considering all the things Michael Condrey detailed and promised. Sadly, this last attempt to gain my multiplayer favor pushed me away even more and I probably won’t touch the series ever again.
If it pleases the awful dictator who hates Horizon Zero Dawn, Chris Harding, I’m going to get the smallest of problems out of the way first. Call of Duty WW2 is plagued with technical and online errors. Nothing too surprising as this has happened with other popular games at launch and will continue to do so in the future. Where WW2 takes the cake however, is something that would make the first Black Ops blush. Not only will you have connection errors, but more than half the time you’ll get blue screened back to the dashboard for simply having the audacity to finish an online match. Once you do finish a match you’ll most likely join a game in progress when you gather the patience to matchmake again. Then while in that late join you’ll experience some mighty fine and very traditional lag.
My next problem is either with that traditional lag or another Call of Duty having awful hit detection again. Something not even dedicated servers could fix at this point for the franchise. Unfortunately, Call of Duty WW2 will bring back terrible memories for those who understand the problems when hit detection isn’t on point. You can shoot someone in a match first and with more, well-placed, bullets and still lose a gunfight when both players are using the same weapon. Final killcams even highlight this issue further when it’s clear as day that a player hit air and got a hit marker anyway. This reason alone caused me to sell many an online shooter, but the problems keep going with this title.
WW2 suffers from mass weapon favoring, also known as overpowered weapons or only the best weapons will be used en masse. Usually when I start a shooter I go about trying different guns in the assault rifle or submachine gun department. Never was fond of sniping and shotguns…well, you know how I feel on them. Being so run and gun pushed more unlock tokens into those aforementioned categories and it turns out I got the “strategy” half right. I should have focused more on light machine guns and the Lewis in particular. This LMG has ridiculous accuracy and range for its class with a nice dose of no recoil. There were maps where I was being hit with this thing at sniper rifle range (which will get into soon) and that’s a big no-no.
If lugging a heavy piece of equipment, that somehow fires like an assault rifle, isn’t your style don’t worry. Turns out there’s a gun nearly everyone above level 20 uses, the PPSH-41 submachine gun. Now I have no problem with this weapon as I used it myself before I uninstalled WW2 and put it up for sale. It’s just that this gun is so formidable that it can beat every other gun (including itself) in a fair firefight. Naturally, all the “noobz”, pros, and gamers in between gravitate towards it. If anything seeing so many people wield the PPSH-41 and getting killed by it, and it alone over long periods of time, was the most frustrating thing. A game requires balance and I certainly did not see that.
Speaking of which, my last big problem with WW2’s multiplayer is the map/level designs. I’ll start with Gustav Cannon, the worst of the bunch. This map places heavy artillery directly in the center and four houses at each corner of the level. You already see my qualm yes? Every time I played this map there were snipers camping in those buildings and people camping on artillery equipment. I could do little more than run around like a chicken with its head cut off or join the campers in their own game. Way to encourage a very boring and frustrating match. USS Texas isn’t much better. Both ends of the ship act as spawn points with the middle of the map being a superstructure. (boat terms yea!) You can enter the base floor and go up to the helm here. Upsettingly, nine times out of ten whatever team would win the beginning skirmish would then spawn camp the other team. There weren’t many pathways to avoid this sad fate.
My last, real problem with the map designs end with Gibraltar. This map is a little more circular in scope and with Call of Duty that’s a big issue. Not only are the flanking pathways a little jarring, but the spawn points are atrocious here. Unless both teams are camping on their respective halves, expect to get shot in your back before you know it. For those asking if I didn’t have problems with any of the maps London Docks was pretty good. It’s a shame my only match played there involved wildly unbalanced teams. As for Flak Tower, I never once experienced it in 3+ hours of play. Plus, we’ll never talk about Carentan…those damn house camping spots right next to choking points.
So another Call of Duty has come and gone and yet again I can’t stand its multiplayer. Call of Duty WW2 was the last chance to truly pull me in and it failed worse than any previous entry in the series. Looks like Destiny 2 will continue to see more playing time and Battlefield 1 may even be re-downloaded so I can actually play a competent, online shooter.
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