Call of Duty: Vanguard is a 2021 first-person shooter game developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. It was released on November 5 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It serves as the 18th installment in the overall Call of Duty series. Vanguard establishes a storyline featuring the birth of the special forces to face an emerging threat at the end of the war during various theatres of World War II.
The game received mixed reviews from critics, with praise towards the entertainment value of the campaign and multiplayer, and the graphics, but criticism for its writing, Zombies mode, and lack of innovation. It failed to meet the sales expectations of Activision.
Gameplay
Campaign Vanguard's campaign features similar gameplay mechanics previously introduced in Modern Warfare, such as the player being able to mount wielded weapons to flat surfaces, interact with doors and execute takedowns. New gameplay features allow the player the ability to use a more advanced tactical approach in combat such as blind firing from behind cover, breaking through destructible environmental elements or creating new paths to complete objectives by climbing walls.
Multiplayer Vanguard's multiplayer mode introduces a new game mode to the series, titled "Champion Hill", a successor to the mode "Gunfight", a 2v2 arena mode previously featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Champion Hill tasks players with surviving as long as possible in a squad-based deathmatch, round-robin tournament. Season 2 of Vanguard introduces "Arms Race", a large-scale game mode where two teams of 12 players attempt to capture five bases, or destroy them; players can also earn cash from kills and complete objectives to buy custom loadouts and killstreaks. A new feature introduced to the Call of Duty series through Vanguard's multiplayer is "Combat Pacing". This allows the player to have more control over the selection of multiplayer game modes through three pre-defined pacing filters favoring different playstyles. As an addition to the returning Gunsmith system, Vanguards multiplayer features a "Caliber system", which brings greater destructibility and reactive environments to maps through different ammunition types.
As with Cold War, Vanguard is integrated with Warzone, allowing players to progress and use weapons, operators and other cosmetics items across both titles, in addition to the existing Modern Warfare and Cold War items in Warzone. Like prior Call of Duty installments since 2019, Vanguard's multiplayer is also fully cross-platform play compatible, with support for cross-generation gaming regarding eighth and ninth generation home video game consoles.
Zombies
The cooperative Zombies mode returns in Vanguard, developed by Treyarch in collaboration with Sledgehammer Games. The mode is considered an expansion of the Dark Aether story, and acts as a prologue to Black Ops Cold War's story. At launch, the game features a new map titled "Der Anfang", which combines aspects of round-based survival gameplay with the objective-based gameplay of Outbreak and Onslaught, both new gamemodes introduced in Cold War. Gameplay elements from Cold War return in Vanguard, such as Essence and Salvage currencies, and Dark Aether-powered field upgrades, in addition to classic Zombies gameplay items like perks and the Pack-a-Punch machine. A new gameplay feature, the Altar of Covenants, allows players to purchase randomized buffs every round, allowing a variety in combat builds. Post-launch updates for Zombies feature additional objectives for Der Anfang, including a main quest for story progression, as well as new Covenants and field upgrades. An additional map, "Terra Maledicta", was also added to the game in February 2022 as part of the Season 2 content update. Classic round-based maps were announced for Vanguard in April 2022, with the first map, a remake of the Call of Duty: World at War map "Shi no Numa", released in Season 4. The second round-based map, "The Archon", was released in Season 5, which was also the final map released for the mode.
Plot Campaign NOTE: The campaign story of Vanguard is told throughout various points in time in a non-chronological order.
In August 1941, Australian Army demolitionist Private Lucas Riggs (Martin Copping) is stationed at Tobruk as part of the Rats of Tobruk garrison. After a failed ambush attempt against an Afrika Korps convoy, the Rats are assigned to recover supplies for the British Army. They manage to find intelligence relating to General Erwin Rommel, and destroy an enemy depot in the process, but are detained by British Major Henry Hamms (James Frain) for insubordination. In October 1942, during the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Rats are ordered by Hamms to form a defensive line, but Riggs disobeys the command and tries to retake a hill and call in bomber support with fellow Rat Private Desmond "Des" Wilmont (Nikolai Nikolaeff) supporting him. The two of them succeed, though Des is killed in action. Angered by the disregard for the Rats' contribution to the fight, Riggs punches Hamms out of frustration, resulting in him facing prison time.
In June 1942, U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Wade Jackson (Derek Phillips) participates in the Battle of Midway with his tail gunner, Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Mateo Hernandez (Christopher Rivas), in their Douglas SBD Dauntless, and manages to destroy two Japanese aircraft carriers. In November 1943, during the Bougainville campaign, Jackson and Hernandez are shot down and captured by Japanese soldiers. They are rescued by the 93rd Infantry Division, who later help them acquire an Aichi D3A to assist the division in reclaiming the island.
In August 1942, Red Army nurse Private Polina Petrova (Laura Bailey) witnesses the Wehrmacht invade Stalingrad. She fails to save her father Boris from being executed by the Nazis, but manages to escape with her brother Misha (Mark Ivanir) and several Soviet partisans. Petrova eventually acquires the nickname "Lady Nightingale" for her sniping skills as she pursues Leo Steiner (Ray Proscia), the German commander leading the invasion. In January 1943, Petrova and Misha attempt to assassinate Steiner, but Misha is severely wounded and sacrifices himself to buy Petrova time to escape. Petrova eventually confronts and kills Steiner and his guards, inspiring the citizens of Stalingrad to reclaim the city from the Nazis. She then sets her sights on Steiner's superior, Hermann Freisinger (Dan Donohue), a high ranking officer in the SS.
In June 1944, British Army paratrooper Sergeant Arthur Kingsley (Chiké Okonkwo) takes part in Operation Tonga, where he and the Parachute Regiment help destroy the Merville Gun Battery and several bridges to assist the Allied forces in invading Normandy. Kingsley befriends fellow paratrooper Sergeant Richard Webb (Simon Quarterman), who becomes Kingsley's right-hand man.
Kingsley, Webb, Petrova, Jackson and Riggs, alongside Yugoslav partisan Milos Novak, would eventually be recruited by SOE Captain Carver Butcher (Ron Bottitta) to form the first special operations task force, callsign Vanguard, with Kingsley as its leader. In April 1945, Vanguard hijacks a train to Hamburg in search of intelligence regarding Project Phoenix, a secret Nazi program run by Freisinger. While infiltrating a Nazi submarine, the squad minus Jackson, who was hidden is captured by German soldiers, and Novak is bludgeoned to death by Freisinger. Vanguard is delivered to the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, where Freisinger appoints his underling Jannick Richter (Dominic Monaghan) to interrogate them. Jackson is later captured after attempting to steal a plane at Berlin Tempelhof Airport; Richter responds by executing Webb to demoralize the team.
Being unaware of Project Phoenix's purpose and Freisinger's involvement, Richter attempts to learn more by interrogating Petrova and Riggs about Steiner and Rommel's connection to Freisinger. He deduces that the project was a coup attempt, in order to appoint Freisinger as the new Führer of the Fourth Reich. As Berlin falls under siege by the Red Army following Adolf Hitler's suicide, Riggs breaks out of interrogation and frees the squad, while Kingsley kills Richter to avenge Webb. Vanguard pursues Freisinger through the city to Tempelhof, where they apprehend him and burn him alive. The four board Freisinger's plane, discovering numerous German documents and assets revealing Nazi covert operations worldwide. Kingsley decides to follow up on Project Aggregat, a secret V2 rocket facility, and orders Jackson to fly there.
Multiplayer/Warzone In December 1944, Captain Butcher begins to oversee Operation Vulcan, a top-secret Special Operations Executive mission to hunt down Axis soldiers and scientists who fled to the South Pacific. Butcher deploys with Task Force Trident to Caldera Island in pursuit of Nazi activities, but their plane is shot down by anti-air, leaving the three Trident members stranded from Butcher. As the task force attempts to navigate the island, Butcher stumbles upon the entrance to a Nazi bunker at the beach where he crash-landed. The intel recovered from Caldera reveals that the Nazis were working on a new chemical weapon, dubbed "Nebula V". Butcher travels to the Swiss Alps with Task Force Yeti, intending to recover Nebula V from a nearby Nazi fortress. The Yeti members storm the fortress, but are unable to stop the Nazi commander from releasing the Nebula V gas. They barely manage to escape as the gas engulfs the fortress.
The Nazis begin to deploy Nebula V across the world, hitting major cities such as Paris and London, as well as Caldera. In March 1951, Butcher dispatches Task Force Harpy to Caldera to intercept a Nazi arms convoy, where they find a radio emitting a mysterious primal sound. Butcher laments that the release of Nebula V has awakened something powerful near Caldera. The island would eventually become a battleground between two gigantic monsters, the kaiju Godzilla and the gorilla Kong.
As the years go by, the operators under Butcher's command begin to take up mercenary work, in pursuit of Nazi gold and other sources of wealth. In 1976, Butcher leads his own squad, Task Force Immortal, to investigate the crash site of a helicopter carrying a gold shipment, but is met with hostility from Kingsley, who has formed his own mercenary team comprising members of other task forces. Sometime later, returning villains Raul Menendez (Kamar de los Reyes), Khaled Al-Asad (Michael Benyaer), He "Seraph" Zhen-Zhen (Judy Alice Lee), and Gabriel Rorke (Kevin Gage) make an explosive appearance on Caldera.
Zombies
Development Vanguard is the third title developed by Sledgehammer Games in the Call of Duty franchise after 2014's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and 2017's Call of Duty: WWII.
After WWII was released, the studio went through a rebuilding process regarding the organisational structure following the departure of the studio co-founders and directors Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey. In an interview made by VentureBeat about the rebuilding and the path leading Sledgehammer Games to develop Vanguard, Studio Head Aaron Halon highlighted that "[...] we love our legacy and what we’ve created, but we also wanted to think about the future of the studio and how we could set ourselves up to be even stronger. [...] we're proud of the decisions we’ve made along the way that have led us to where we're at today with Call of Duty: Vanguard."