Game Informer has posted the first trailer, above, that fully explores Call of Duty: WWII's Headquarters mode, the series-first social space for soldiers with a little downtime.
We already knew, via Eurogamer's E3 interview, that Headquarters is a 48-player space modeled after the Allies' Normandy beach encampment a few days after D-day. There'll be a firing range, a 1v1 arena, quests, and more to do as players compete and socialize. While I recoil at my expectations for the voice chat, a 'commendation' system is also in place to help improve the discourse. We'll see if it works.
This is the first time we've actually seen more than a glimpse at Headquarters, and the trailer is pretty compelling, especially the shot of players lining up to spam cheer emotes as two players go 1v1 in a pit. I'm also happy to see a killstreak training mode, as previously the only way to practice killstreaks was to earn them in a match. The firing range strikes me as the silliest of the activities, as CoD isn't exactly known for complex ballistics modeling, but perhaps moving targets can help hone the speed at which we point and shoot.
Call of Duty trailers are always expertly directed—the first CoD:WWII multiplayer trailer hardly looked like multiplayer at all—so as cool as Headquarters looks, I'm wary of the possibility that it'll be a ghost town after a few weeks, just a place to be yelled at by a few angry kids while everyone else foregoes the hassle for regular matchmaking.
I hope not, because I like the idea. Camaraderie is not something Call of Duty is traditionally great at fostering, and the PC versions have not been retaining players well as of late—if Headquarters can keep people around, and create a positive space for competition and finding groups, it'll make CoD:WWII a lot more attractive than its recent forebearers. We'll give it a go for ourselves when it's out November 3.