Turns war into a timeshare

five general classes you choose before each match. On top of this, you can accept “Missions” that reward you for accomplishing overarching goals like getting 500 kills, 10 headshots in 20 minutes, or killing 10 people with a pistol.

Surrounding this is an economy of Armory Coins and Rank Unlock Tokens that can be used to unlock guns, temporary boosts, cosmetic items and weapon attachments if you aren’t lucky enough to get something from one of the Supply Drop crates you are occasionally gifted. The whole system has the air of a timeshare to it, complete with a foreboding bit of paperwork. The game gets that out of the way upfront with a 22-page software licence and service agreement every player is asked to agree to upon first booting the game, making you “subject to binding arbitration and a waiver of class action rights”. It’s a reminder that buying the game is simply the starting point in what Activision plans to be a long, financial relationship with the player.

There’s a hint of this commitment at the end of the campaign when Red is offered the chance to return to Texas with his girlfriend who’d written to tell him she’s pregnant. Instead he chooses to remain in Europe, scouring the German countryside for a missing friend. “I saw that life,” he says. “I just couldn’t live it.” In the same way, Call of Duty: WWII feels like a game in which the prospect of moving on is somehow scarier than staying in the battlefield for one more tour.