The new Call of Duty Private Beta is in full swing for both Xbox One and PS4 and we here at Arch City Sports got our hands on it. I can honestly say that my expectations were, for the most part, surpassed. For the last few years we have been given a Call of Duty title that has just infuriated us fans; from mech suits to help you run on walls to exploring the very fringes of the Solar System fighting in an asteroid field, it has been very clear that fans of the CoD (Call of Duty) series were wanting to go back to the roots, or at least back to something that revolved around the Modern Warfare era, which to this day is still one of the more widely played CoD titles in the series (save for Black OPS II, which was the more successful out of the three Black OPS titles).
Well here we have it, Call of Duty: World War II; we are being taken back to Call of Duty’s inception, and fans are loving it. We here at Arch City Sports are currently playing the multiplayer Private Beta on the Xbox One. Initially when starting the game you choose one of five divisions to start with: Infantry, Airborne, Armored, Mountain and Expeditionary (each division is accommodated with a live action recruiting video). However as you gain more experience and unlock tokens, you will have the option to unlock the other division to experience them all as every division has its own perks and secret weapons to aid you in combat.
The bread and butter of the Private Beta is the multiplayer team deathmatch, however I myself played the War aspect a lot even though it’s just one map; the War scenario pits your team against the enemy team and you must either take four checkpoints (the attacking team) or defend the checkpoints for a certain amount of time until reinforcements arrive (you have up to 2 minutes before enemy reinforcements arrive, resulting in the attacking team losing the round).
The Private Beta surprised us with the amount of content that was released with it. There are plenty of weapons and 
attachments to unlock for each division; and (this is the RPG in me), as you rank up in your division, the avatar you play as slowly changes and looks more badass. The various deathmatch modes were intriguing and fun for the most part, however team deathmatch is probably the most played out of all of them. For a time the servers went down for hours because there was so much traffic going through them that the developer had to re-open the servers to accommodate for the unexpected amount of players that were on the Private Beta.
The graphics were impressive; they weren’t the greatest, however this is just a beta. Ghost Recon: Wildlands graphics were horrible in its beta trial, however that aspect was fixed upon its release. One aspect though that I wasn’t a fan of is something that has always plagued Call of Duty: it is still just a run and gun game. Yes, there are modes where in order to score and rank up, you need to have some type of strategy, however about 80% of the game is still just running and gunning. I still find that Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1 requires some type of strategy in order to rank up. However I must 
add that is my personal criticism of the Call of Duty series that I have never liked.
Another part of the game that really made me have to put the game down a few times was that I downloaded the Private Beta at 9am Friday, the day the Private Beta started. I started playing a little later after that and there were players already level 20 and some even in the 30’s, making them far superior to play against and harder to just enjoy the game because you were dying left and right. I’m no noob at Call of Duty, but it just doesn’t seem very fun for a person to get killed 10 seconds after you have spawned into the game.
The Private Beta for the most part has not disappointed us with the amount of content to experience and unlock. And lets just agree that it is a breath of fresh air to not be fighting in some futuristic era where you barely have to pull the trigger in order to score a kill.
Call of Duty: WWII Private Beta will be up until September 4th, so get in as much time as you can!
I am married to a beautiful and devoted woman; I have been writing for over ten years now with one science fiction novel published and currently working on a couple screenplays. I am a college graduate with a Masters in criminal justice and currently furthering my education for my Ph.D in criminal justice. In my off time, I game on Xbox and my gaming computer when time permits.
