Call of Duty: WWII release date set for November, watch the first trailer

After being announced last week—and leaked before that—Call of Duty: WWII has been officially revealed, shooting the prolific series back to WWII for the first time since World At War in 2008. Watch the trailer above.

The reveal came during a livestream today, in which Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg declared that Call of Duty: WWII "brings back the intense, visceral, boots on the ground gameplay" of the Call of Duty series, with a "gritty and authentic" take on "the intense bonds of brotherhood that came from everyday people."

"Gritty, authentic war feel" and "boots on the ground," by the way, are also direct quotes used to describe Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (see the third slide here). The setting may have changed, but war? War never changes.

Hirshberg also announced that a private multiplayer beta will take place later this year. We'll update this post as the story develops...

Update: After repeating the words "boots on the ground" like 20 more times, and horrifyingly implying that they are educators, the devs and actors showed off a tiny, tiny glimpse at multiplayer (it was a couple seconds long, and either shows a surprisingly large team or some aspect of the new social space).

New to multiplayer will be an "asymmetrical" objective-driven Allies vs Axis mode, a new progression system, called Divisions, which sees players "enlist in a division and progress through the ranks," and that social space I mentioned, called Headquarters. (There will also be boots on the ground.)

You can watch the archived livestream here. Multiplayer will be playable on the floor at E3, and Call of Duty: WWII will be out November 3.

Oh, we also got confirmation that Zombies is back, but of course it is. Catch a glimpse below: