Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: World at War is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the fifth main installment of the Call of Duty series and is the fourth entry in the series to be set during World War II. The game was announced by Activision in June 2008 and was released in November 2008 for the PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, and Wii. Other games under the World at War title were published for the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2, featuring different storylines and missions. The game's story, told primarily from the perspectives of U.S. Marine Raider Private C. Miller and Soviet Red Army Private Dimitri Petrenko, focuses on the Pacific and Eastern Front theaters of World War II. Development for World at War took two years and began after the release of Treyarch's previous entry in the series, Call of Duty 3, which was also set during World War II. The game is based on an enhanced version of Infinity Ward's IW engine, with increased development on audio and visual effects. Treyarch used the engine to make more parts of certain environments destructible and introduce limb dismemberment and realistic burns to character models. Upon release, World at War received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed at its intensity and violent nature, though some critics felt it was too similar to past Call of Duty titles. Retrospective reviews consider it one of the series' best World War II entries, with praise for the campaign's depiction of the brutality of World War II and the introduction of the Zombies mode. It became one of the best-selling titles of 2008, selling three million copies in the United States within the first two months of its release. It also marked the beginning of the Black Ops sub-series, as characters from World at War were carried over into its sequel, Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010).