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Treyarch is convinced this won't suffer from Yet Another World War II Shooter ennui, mostly because much of the game is set in the Pacific theatre rather than Europe. It's been done before, most notably by EA's leaden Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, but there's a single phrase which defines this new approach - 'survival horror.'
Your Japanese enemies are not simple reskins of COD4's insurgents - they're a different type of foe entirely, with their own devious AI, designed to evoke the fearlessness and unflinching dedication of the Imperial Japanese Army. Think the Vietcong, but in the 1940s. This indefatigable foe lies in wait, in pits and in trees, not moving a muscle until an unaware Yankee passes. If faced with insurmountable odds, rather than staying behind cover they'll suicide charge the enemy with bayonets - they might only take down one guy in the process, but that guy might well be you.
While CODs to date have favoured a bombastic shooting gallery of pop-up baddies charging in waves, the idea in WAW's Pacific levels is that every scrap of scenery is a potential trap. Paranoia will be your main driving force. Every corpse could be faking it, every tree could hide a sniper, each patch of long grass is a potential death-trap. Which is why flamethrowers are so important. Oh yes, flamethrowers. Traditionally a preposterous archetype of sillier shooters, in WAW they have an accurate and essential purpose. In an oppressive locale of dense trees and tall grass, fire is your best hope of flushing out hidden threats. Which means new hotness for the graphics engine - palm leaves wither and collapse, their burning branches igniting the grassland below when they hit the floor. Wooden barriers are vulnerable and destructible too, which should mean a canny evolution of COD4's shoot-through-the-scenery shtick.
Reinforcing WAW's fire theme, Molotov cocktails and flame tanks will play a part in this war-ending siege. While Treyarch is pretty tight-lipped on details for now, this was a time when the vengeful Russians were positively baying for German blood - couple that with WAW's mature rating and we're likely in for a dramatically more brutal take on the WW2 FPS.Treyarch refused to share details on the plotline (beyond hinting there'll be some celebrity voices), but it seems unlikely the Russians' path of murder and rape across Germany will be entirely reflected.
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=158302
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