Call of Duty: World at War Preview

If you're Activision, how do you follow the award-winning, game of the year title Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which catapulted the shooter series from World War II to the present day? The answer: you go back to your roots with another tour in WWII, but this time you bring Call of Duty to some fresh battlefields with deadly new enemies.

Activision recently announced Call of Duty: World at War, which will be the fifth major installment of the military first-person shooter franchise, World at War, developed by Activision subsidiary Treyarch, moves the series to the Pacific theater for the first time to confront the Japanese. Last month, Activision invited members of the gaming media to Treyarch's headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., to see the game up close for the first time (Activision held a two-day preview event in June to show off some blockbuster titles in lieu of attending E3 2008).

After gathering at Treyarch's office, which is decked out with Call of Duty paraphernalia and camouflaged netting around its cubicles, the developer guided around 20 reporters and editors into a small theater and showed the first gameplay demo of World at War on the Xbox 360 (the game is also coming to the PC, PlayStation 3, and Wii). But first, Mark Lamia, Treyarch studio head, set the stage for the demo. "We're out to make the best shooter of the year," Lamia told the audience, adding that Call of Duty 4 owned the modern combat era and that "we are going to own the WWII genre."

With that said, Treyarch dimmed the lights and fired up the single player demo. The cut scene began inside a dark tent where two Japanese soldiers grab a beaten, bloodied American prisoner of war and stub a cigarette out in his eye. Then one of the Japanese soldiers takes a katana and slits the POW's throat, sending blood everywhere. The player is another American POW, who's forced to watch his fellow Marine tortured and killed by the Japanese. It's a grisly, powerful segment that's reminiscent of Call of Duty 4's cut scenes.

Just when it looks like the player is about to meet a similar fate, a squad of U.S. soldiers swoop in and rescues the playable character, who grabs a weapon and sets off with the rest of the Marines. Then the game begins as action erupts in the Japanese camp near the beach. An intense firefight, punctuated with massive explosions, takes place amongst bamboo huts, docks and shallow water. The combat is brutal, and at one point, the player sees a fellow Marine shoot an unarmed Japanese soldier on his knees. Rich Farrelly, creative director at Treyarch, explained to the audience that the developer wanted to make the game as realistic as possible. "No prisoners," Farrelly said. "No quarter was given on either side."

After charging through the Japanese camp, the Marines move inland and suddenly find themselves ambushed in a dark jungle. A flare illuminates the night sky, and suddenly Japanese soldiers materialize everywhere, popping out of bushes and springing up from the ground. The battle, which includes brutal melee combat, is relentless and taut - just like Modern Warfare. The Marines are surrounded as wave after wave of attackers blitz them. Death appears imminent. And then the demo ends.

If the rest of World at War is anything like the first demo level, titled "Maken Raid," then Call of Duty will have another hit. Along with the visceral action, the game had impressive environments and excellent level design that heightened the suspense. But what made World at War's demo most significant was its "grittier, edgier tone," as Lamia put it. Until Modern Warfare, Call of Duty titles weren't known for having recoil-inspiring violence or graphic bloodshed. But Call of Duty 4 arrived and not only brought the military shooter genre to a new level, but it also redefined playable character death and introduced a new kind of brutal realism to the series.

Call of Duty: World at War goes back to WWII, but it doesn't go back to the old way of doing things. Instead, the game takes its cue from Call of Duty 4 (right down to the game menu interface). And according to Treyarch, it was necessary to follow Modern Warfare's footsteps in order to portray the Pacific theater of WWII accurately. Farrelly and Lt. Colonel Hank Keirsey, a retired Army veteran and the military advisor for Call of Duty, explained that Treyarch and Activision wanted to do justice to this era of WWII. They interviewed dozens of veterans to make sure the story of the First Marine Division and the U.S. invasion of Japan was finally told the right way.

Later in the demo, Treyarch showed the introduction to the Pacific campaign, which showed real WWII footage of President Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor in sequence that was similar in style to the 2007 action movie "The Kingdom." The most crucial part of telling the story accurately, however, involved remaking the enemy; instead of conventional warfare against Nazi soldiers in urban settings, U.S. forces faced an unfamiliar foe in the Pacific theater. The Japanese military was fearless and aggressive, blitzing American soldiers with "banzai charges" and choosing death before the dishonor of surrendering. Farrelly and Keirsey explained that every detail about the Japanese military will be brought to life in World at War.

For example, Imperial soldiers will engage in lethal ambushes and guerilla tactics, utilizing tunnels, underground bunkers and "spider holes" to surprise the Marines. Snipers will wait patiently in camouflaged locations, sometimes sitting in trees for days with only a rope tied to their leg. "They lived by the Bushido code," Farrelly said. They were like samurai. All of a sudden hundreds of Japanese come running with bayonets. They know they're going to die."

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