Call of Duty: WWII will not have a single-player Axis campaign

Playing as an Axis soldier in the single-player mode of a big-budget World War 2 FPS is a prospect I find interesting, if maybe a bit creepy. Seeing the war from the perspective of the enemy, in either the victorious early days or the desperate defense of the final months, is something I've never had the opportunity to experience in a CoD-style videogame.

Of course, there's a reason for that. The cause of the Axis powers was, in a word, evil, and there's just no way to paper over the fact that you're fighting in defense of the Third Reich.

Still, it's bound to happen someday, and some gamers have been wondering if the upcoming Call of Duty: WWII would be the game to do it—a thought bolstered, according to GamesRadar, by the appearance of what looked like a German soldier in CoD:WWII concept art.

Developer Sledgehammer Games has previously said that the new CoD will take a more nuanced look at the war, and the era in which it was fought, than previous games, with depictions of "things like racism, religious persecution, and sexism," and of course the horrific atrocities of the battlefield. But it will not, as studio co-founder Michael Condrey said on Twitter, feature any kind of Axis campaign.

@MojoTeaz You'll fight and follow the Allied cause. The Axis power is a ferocious enemy. But no, you won't play as Axis in campaign.May 24, 2017

I can't say I'm surprised, although as GR points out, it's a bit odd that Activision appeared to be dancing around the issue previously, as if holding back a big surprise—something in the vein of No Russian, perhaps. In any event, now we know that there's no Axis player character in any part of the campaign. You can find out everything else we know about Call of Duty: WWII right here.

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.