Yes, you’re overlooking the most horrifying Call of Duty game on Steam for $20

I’m a fiend for all things Call of Duty Zombies. I love the long-running FPS game mode so much that I’ve got a Ray Gun tattoo and my office is adorned with perk bottles, among other memorabilia. I’ll be honest, though – it isn’t always brilliant, yet some underrated spins on COD Zombies deserve your attention. Call of Duty: WWII is the gnarliest entry in Zombies history, and you can save 67% off it right now on handheld PCs such as the Steam Deck.

You can grab it and add it to your Steam Deck game library for just $19.79 / £14.84, but the offer ends on Monday, October 6, 2025. As for compatibility, I can vouch for it personally, but Steam itself lists the game as ‘playable’ on Steam Deck. It runs even better on the Asus ROG Ally, too. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate increasing in price, I reckon now is a good time to snag any titles on your Game Pass backlog while they’re on offer, but make sure this is one of them.

I know it seems too odd to recommend a Call of Duty game, a series played by millions. Some instalments are shunned by the community, forgotten, or looked back on like a bad memory. I think Call of Duty: WWII deserves its due. Somehow, almost eight years have flown by since it launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. I still remember picking it up at the end of my shift at Argos, returning to the series after a self-imposed hiatus due to falling out of love with it.

While Sledgehammer Games gets flak for 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, they knocked it out of the park with WWII. A solid boots-on-the-ground campaign, fun multiplayer, and a surprisingly fresh take on Zombies broke me out of the funk. Set outside of Treyarch’s Aether, Dark Aether, and Chaos timelines, this universe is a wholly original narrative where fictitious members of the real-life organization, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program, band together to foil the Final Reich’s final plan – unleashing an undead army to win World War 2.

Celebrity cast members are few and far between in COD Zombies these days, so it’s pretty notable to see David Tennant, Élodie Yung, Ving Rhames, and Katheryn Winnick form our crew. There have been some disgusting, filthy locales in Zombies’ history. Zetsubou No Shima, Shi No Numa, Verruckt, and Der Riese linger in my memory. Even recent additions like Terminus come close, but Sledgehammer Games’ vibes are downright unsettling in WWII.

The Final Reich is dripping with entrails, blood, and the remnants of science experiments. The Darkest Shore throws you onto a bullet-riddled beach, with coats of fog shielding you from threats looming inside the barracks or underground caverns. Grousten Haus is a simpler map, locking you inside a farmhouse, with limited space to avoid the clutches of undead enemies waiting to peel your bones with their teeth.

WWII Zombies is the closest the mode has come to fully embracing horror game vibes, shedding itself of humor and playfulness for an oppressive tone that hasn’t been touched again since. Sledgehammer Games is leaning on World at War’s version of Zombies, especially how it feels to load up Nacht Der Untoten for the first time. I still love the game mode, but these days it isn’t exactly scary. I’m hoping Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 might change that.

I’m longing for the days I can bring COD Zombies with me on Nintendo Switch 2, but right now, I keep on jumping into Black Ops 6’s Citadelle des Morts or World War II’s The Final Reich. I’m always impressed by how well the Call of Duty series runs on handheld PCs, despite recent entries posing roadblocks with Battle.net or the sometimes wobbly Xbox app on the Asus ROG Ally Z1e.

You can use our handy Black Ops 6 Steam Deck guide if you want to try it for yourself, or grab some COD Mobile codes for the series’ small-screen cousin.