Activision and Treyarch have officially announced that Call of Duty: World at War will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and PC later this this fall, and if one were to listen to studio head Mark Lamia, Treyarch seems quite confident about it: “With Call of Duty: World at War, we’re re-defining what it means to play a WWII game. We’re excited to give players a host of new enemies that employ entirely new tactics, as well as new, groundbreaking tools – like co-op and the flamethrower – to succeed in the epic fight.”

The flamethrower, as well as Japanese kamikaze soldiers we already knew about, but how will the  new-to-the-series cooperative mode work out? For starters, it can be played by either four players online on the 360, PS3 and PC, or through 2-player local split-screen on the consoles. In addition, the Wii version will get a unique 2-player co-op mode. By completing co-op challenges and earning experience points, players will move up in the ranks and unlock perks that can be later used to get the edge in the competitive modes. And based on the players experience rank, the game will adjust its difficulty accordingly.

Not much beats putting your heads together in Rainbow Six: Vegas or using combined firepower trying to stay alive in Croteam’s Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, so here’s hoping Treyarch will get it right and that the co-op will be a worthy new addition to the series. The first trailer that’s been released for the game unfortunately doesn’t show that much from either the graphics nor gameplay departments, so they’re yet to prove that World at War can can rise above CoD 3 and CoD 2: Big Red One, which typically aren’t considered to be the best games in the series.