Call of Duty: WWII – how an indie classic inspired the latest instalment

While the latest CoD takes the action back to its roots, its developers drew inspiration from Journey and some other unlikely sources

There are certain places you'd expect the developers of a well-known military shooter to look for inspiration. Previous titles in the series, war movies, other shooters " that's more-or-less it. What you perhaps don't expect is for the team behind the latest Call of Duty title to count among their influences an elegiac cooperative indie game about the meaning of life. You don't expect them to play Journey.

But according to Michael Condrey, co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, the San Francisco studio behind Call of Duty: WWII, that's exactly what they did.