By Aitch Cee

While many of us will admit that the WWII genre was a bit overdone in the mid 2000’s, one can’t help but to think some really great games were yielded from that era. Call of Duty and Battlefield are the two biggest franchises not to mention Brothers in Arms and Medal of Honor. As tastes in WWII style games waned, other avenues opened up for other settings. However, some clamor that using the modern and future settings ‘are starting to look alike’.   So the question is, with new systems that are out now and beefed up PCs that can do more than they did 10 years ago, why not revisit these eras. Below are a few good reasons why a trip back to WWII wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

New systems mean more everything

For me, the system seller of the Xbox 360 was Call of Duty 2. At that time, the graphics were cutting edge and everything about it screamed ‘the future’. Try playing it now and you will see how it really didn’t age all that well. From a nostalgia point of view it would still play well but why would you? With all that has been done with the Call of Duty series and the graphical boost in general that one would get from today’s new gen consoles, why not take Call of Duty and other FPS games back to its roots?   Just think with newer games, we can get improved set pieces, and better details than what we had 10 years ago. Even from a control stand point, just think of some of the things that couldn’t be done before that might be possible now.

The multiplayer matches would probably be a bit more challenging since players would have to utilize some of the weapons of the era. Also since the amount of people in multiplayer games have increased, Call of Duty could feel more involved. And the multiplayer modes that were scare 10 years ago would really keep WWII players busy! Speaking of multiplayer, Battlefield, another game that originally started off as a WWII game and primarily multiplayer at that, could benefit from next-gen power. Does anyone remember the D-Day landing mission in the original BF1942? Just think if a new-gen BF game could come along and really pull off 64 or more players in a Normandy landing match? Not to mention the vehicles that could be used and so much more. Medal of Honor could probably get the resurgence it needs from a new WWII title since the last 2 modern games didn’t do so well.

What about the Stories?

Let’s be honest, many of us really don’t get into Call of Duty or Battlefield for the story. Why?   It’s because the stories in these games are throwaways. But just imagine with right people writing, we can get some stories behind the lines in Russia, or even a spy story in Berlin. Even if you want to take it in another direction, an Assassins Creed WWII game wouldn’t be a bad idea.What about games where you can play as members of the French Resistance or the German Resistance attempting to assassinate Hitler?

With some of the stories that were told in last gen games, there are still more out there that hasn’t been touched simply because the power to tell them wasn’t there, but are now. One cool innovation that came along was Medal of Honor’s Airborne. In that game, you could start in different parts of an area and wind up changing your end point because of that. Even with the Brothers in Arms series, as under rated a franchise it was, had a pretty good story line not to mention a great squad based game as well.   Games and the systems we play them on have matured a lot in the past decade and there is so much we are missing out on by rushing headlong into the future.

…and the Future Looks Bleak

FPS games graduated from WWII, to modern day conflicts and now we are on future wars yet to be waged. If the newest Call of Duty and Battlefield entries are any indication of what’s to come, we should shake in our shoes. We have dealt with terrorists, had standoffs with China and hired private armies to fight our wars. We have also nuked the earth, fought in space and fought countries who were our allies and  things that are fiction have a fast way of becoming fact. With the way some things are going on in real life, these scenarios aren’t too far away. That’s not to say that WWII is a fictional world but it’s a past that had a bright future and one we can play in knowing how the story ended. Any war is a brutal conflict in the amount of lives lost and property destroyed. But, the games of today have settings that hit a little too close to home and sometimes can be downright scary considering some of the weapons used in the game aren’t too far off of practical applications.

There are possibly other reasons why it’s time for FPS games and perhaps other franchises as well to revisit the WWII era. The power is there to do it. With many of the modern war games out there, it possible to pull off a new Call of Duty set in France or Russia. Systems are powerful enough to pull off some credible multiplayer levels never before seen. Branching stories are possible as well. Also let’s not forget that there are some other games available as well that will let us get our WWII fix catered to…as long as you have a PC.   One is the Red Orchestra franchise which has been touted as being one of the most realistic shooters of the WWII era. Iron Front: Liberation 1944 is another game set in Southern Poland. Sniper Elite III is also available on new-gen consoles and PC.

So, what do you think? Is it time for WWII to make a comeback?   Let us know in the comments.