How close are Call of Duty: WWII‘s maps to the real life battlefields on which they were based? See for yourself in this gallery of screenshot-to-photograph comparisons.
Late last year I embarked on a tour of significant WWI and WWII battlefields in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. As it happens a number of the sites I had the honor to visit and photograph are also represented as maps in the new Activision title, including Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc. Activision has a blog post with some detail around the historical significance behind these real locations where fierce engagements took place during World War II.
My Grandfather landed on Juno Beach on D-Day with the No. 22 Canadian Field Ambulance Unit of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. He spent the month of June 1944 in, and around, Beny-sur-Mer, in late June 1944 he was injured and evacuated. I set out on this battlefield tour with my father and one of my brothers so that we could consider the experience of my Grandfather.
Pages from my Grandfather's WWII Service Book. Note "Disembarked France 6 Jun 44," also known as D-Day, about 3/4 of the way down on right-hand page.
The tour began on November 4th, 2017, when I realized Call of Duty: WWII was to be released on November 3rd, just one day before our scheduled departure, I decided that I would bring my Xbox in the hope that my brother and I could visit historical battlefield sites during the days and play through the campaign in the evenings at the hotels. We completed the campaign on our last evening in Nijmegen, Belgium after visiting the John Frost Bridge (A Bridge Too Far), the Holten Canadian Military Cemetery and the Canadian Legion 005 earlier that day.
Over the course of the 10 day tour I took over 3,000 photos from which I was able to draw these comparison shots. Additional photos of these sites, and of the many others we visited, can be viewed here. Please contact me if you wish to inquire regarding usage rights.
The hero image is a screenshot from the Call of Duty: WWII Pointe du Hoc map split with a photograph taken at Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, France.
Special thanks to The Battlefield Tours for providing a top-notch tour experience.
All photographic images Copyright © 2017-2018 Phil Tucker. ACTIVISION, CALL OF DUTY, and CALL OF DUTY WWII are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc.