Call of Duty WWII is about killing for fun. Why pretend otherwise?

There is a new Call of Duty video game coming out this November, and like the first three titles in the long-running, hugely successful series, it will be set during the second world war. Over the course of a 45-minute livestreamed announcement event on Wednesday night, developer Sledgehammer laid out its vision for the new military shooter: a gritty but authentic evocation of the conflict, following a young recruit to the US Army's First Infantry division as it storms the beaches at Normandy then trudges through Europe towards Germany. The studio heads spent time talking about the realism and respect of their project, and the painstaking accuracy put into the development process. It's not so much the sheer familiarity of the game's setting – though that is somewhat disappointing. Operation Overlord, with its visually dramatic seaborne invasion, has provided material to video game developers for decades, lending a backdrop to the Medal of Honor and Brothers in Arms titles, as well as many earlier war simulations.