The latest in the banal and simultaneously ludicrous Call of Duty franchise will return the World War II, the first entry since World at War in 2008. I cannot think of a time that I have been more disappointed in a reveal trailer for a game I probably wasn't ever going to buy. Snark aside however, I feel that the franchise has missed a tremendous opportunity to finally expand beyond the European theater.
World War II was a massive conflict. There were conflicts worthy of note in far more places than Europe, but we cannot seem to get out of that part of the war. Almost every single time we get another World War II game, we find ourselves on Omaha Beach, or in the forest of Bastogne or the ruins of Stalingrad. Yes, these were separate events in the war, but they represent such a small slice of the greater conflict.
I wholeheartedly think that we should be looking at some of the further off, lesser known battles of World War II by this point. There was an episode of the YouTube series Extra Credits back in 2015 that addressed this point really well, and I've linked it here. The best I can really do is reiterate what they already said.
There was so much that happened in World War II that we've left completely untouched. We've never explored the conflicts in India or Manchuria for example, two places that saw a great deal of the war and would give a game a fresh approach complete with new environments, tactics, weapons and characters. A rehash of the Allied invasion of Europe is just been done too much by now. I think we owe it to the history of the conflict to explore more of what actually happened there.
