Call of Duty: WWII — How Sledgehammer put a serious twist on Nazi Zombies

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
November 3, 2017
Updated June 19, 2025
11 min

Sledgehammer Games is known for well-paced storytelling. In Call of Duty: WWII, Sledgehammer applied its touch to the single-player campaign as well as to Nazi Zombies, the co-op campaign that comes with the blockbuster that launches today. I played a few rounds of Nazi Zombies and then interviewed the man who was in charge of creating it.

Zombies have become a tradition in Call of Duty games. They’re a cooperative experience that is like a free game within a larger game. And they have helped make Call of Duty into one of the industry’s biggest blockbusters.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.