As any veteran of combat will tell you, war is terrible. There is no romance or glory except in the movies. War is ultimately about killing, and depending on the morals of the sides in question, the line between being a murderer and being a soldier can be very blurry. Call of Duty: World At War is yet another game in the CoD franchise to explore this theme circa its release in 2008, but this time, it's not as tame as previous titles.

Based on a modified version of the first Modern Warfare engine, this game returns to the World War II setting of the classic games. This time, instead of the sanitized Teen rated experience of the previous titles (prior to CoD4), this game is all about the worst horrors of that conflict, in all their bloody majesty.

Like all the games in the Call of Duty franchise, it has first-person shooter mode combat with a computer-controlled support squad in the single-player campaign. Multiplayer is possible with either human opponents or bots via modding, and while I can confirm it still works even now, this review will focus on the main campaign.

Unlike previous games, where combat was straightforward, this game introduces new and violent twists. Flamethrowers will set enemies on fire and destroy structures. Dogs and banzai charging soldiers will try to bayonet you unless you take them out first. Blood is a much more common sight than previous games in general, and some of the new ways to kill will let you get your hands quite bloody indeed.

Like other games, you switch between various fronts in the war, such as the Pacific and Russian fronts, playing as a member of the Allied forces against the Axis powers in each different campaign during the final campaigns of World War II in those theaters. While most objectives are still straightforward and based on real military campaigns, World At War features some more "personal" objectives, including chances to engage in the brutality of combat or trying to keep your actions remotely within that of a lawful combatant, whatever you deem fit.

Graphics are a mix of good and bad. While they do have a lot of new and interesting set pieces, and some of the new and more gruesome weapon effects like burning, blood sprays, and other violent animations hammer home the more brutal nature of the game, other stuff looks phoned in. Some textures look bad up close and some animations are recycled from games like CoD2. While it does not hurt gameplay, a lot of the weapons have lots of errors that are likely to make military and firearm students froth at the mouth, such as hefting a 50-pound anti-tank rifle around like it's weightless, and the recoil of the said rifle not breaking the player's ribs. Otherwise, for a 2008 era game, everything else looks good enough, though it only supports up to 1440 x 900 resolution (you can set it higher with INI settings).

Sounds and music are a highlight. Voice acting is excellent, especially from veterans like Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman. Sounds for weapons are satisfying and other effects are quite good, including the chillingly realistic screams of dying men from things like being burned to death. Music is more tense and staccato, often with a more fierce tempo and lacking the heroic sounding refrains found in earlier titles, which again fits the more grim and brutal nature of the game. Overall, this still holds up even now.

Control is entirely based on keyboard and mouse, as the game wasn't designed with gamepad support. It is possible to force this via Steam's controller settings and even get controllers like the official Xbox controller to work with a fair degree of success. However, the button prompts will still reference the keyboard and thus this is not recommended. The keys are quite responsive for the default controls and remappable if the need arises.

Stability is an interesting topic. While it runs well on any hardware that meets its fairly modest requirements, it can be demanding on the GPU if settings are maxed out even on good PCs.The game officially supports mods, which may affect the stability that differs from the core experience. Linux users can easily run this at native performance via Proton out of the box.

Morally, this is an incredibly dark game, which is unusual for a CoD title in their WWII-era games, as they tend towards the less gruesome.

Violence is intense. The opening scene of the American campaign establishes the tone when you watch a Japanese officer assault, torture, then slit the throat of a helpless US Marine with a lit cigar and a knife. While there is an option to scale down the worst profusion of blood and gore effects in the combat scenes, cutscenes will always be brutal. Lighting people on fire with graphic burning effects, slitting throats, violent limb damage, and profuse displays of blood will be a common sight in all modes of play.

Language is also going to get earthy. While prior games kept things within a mild daytime movie-level atmosphere, here men will swear quite a bit, using multiple variants of the word f*** and all other strong profanity in that vein. There is no sexual content, thankfully enough.

The occult and supernatural would be nonexistent if it wasn't for the "Nazi Zombies" bonus mode, a tradition this game started that later CoD games would run with. While featuring undead hordes of Wehrmacht troops attempting to kill you once again in a survival mode, it otherwise has no other notable supernatural elements.

On the morality front, this game is very morally dark. While you can for the most part restrain your violence to remain within the bounds of acceptable military necessity in all campaigns, some campaigns like the Russian one have moments of being given the option of performing atrocities like murdering helpless surrendered enemy soldiers out of pure spite. Granted, many are shown showing your side just as little mercy, but you can be just as remorselessly evil if you like. It is worth noting that even if you do refrain from war crimes just because you can, some "lawful" acts such as the use of flamethrowers, while not war crimes in most contexts during wartime during WWII, still qualify as incredibly cruel and controversial weapons modern-day nations have since heavily restricted due to their capacity to cause gruesome deaths.

For a game made in 2008, I did have fun, and I do love how they had a more mature though not juvenile focus on the uglier side of war. Technically, it's got some texture work that was bad even by 2008 standards and some accuracy goofs in terms of depictions of weapons. And even if that doesn't bother you, it's still the kind of game I recommend to buy when it's on sale. Morally, the intense violence, language, and incredibly graphic themes are not fit for anyone but mature adults only. With that in mind, if you want a darker take on the horrors of World War II, this has some flaws but it's still worth playing.