Call of Duty: WWII will let you play as a pilot, a tanker, and a female Resistance fighter

The recent Call of Duty: WWII story trailer, and the four squad trailers that followed, focused exclusively on the American soldiers of the US First Infantry Division, who experience the war from the beaches of Normandy to other "iconic" battlefields across Europe. But Sledgehammer Games co-founder Glen Schofield told GQ that while Private Ronald "Red" Daniels of the Big Red One is the game's central character, he's not the only one whose story will be told.

"You won’t play as a German in the single player, but you do play as other Allies. You play as a female French resistance soldier, as an RAF pilot, and as a tank commander," he said. "But it all comes back to Ronald 'Red' Daniels. He’s a kid from Texas and it’s a story about him and his brother. They basically walk through France, with 60 pounds on their back, a 10 pound weapon, and lousy equipment. You’ll liberate Paris, but then it goes to hell again. We show the euphoria and then the letdown.”

While COD:WWII is heavy on "spectacle," Schofield also emphasized the studio's commitment to historical accuracy. He related a story about speaking to historian and consultant Marty Morgan about a train wreck that occurs in the game. "I’d call Marty up and say, ‘I need a train. I need a very important train. Around April of 1944.’ He came back with four different ones, we narrowed it down to two, and the final one was more interesting than what I was coming up with myself," he said. The train crash that came out of all that effort, he noted, "is major."

Schofield said the new game won't "shy away from some of the big things," like racism, sexism, and "all the brutalities." But it will also "make a distinction between Nazis and Germans," he added. "One of the first things we did was talk to people from Germany and people said to us, 'I’m a German not a Nazi'. We make sure we have that distinction in there as well—the human side of both sides."

Call of Duty: WWII will be out on November 3. Before that happens, a multiplayer beta will get underway on the PC on September 29.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.