➤REVIEW: Call of Duty: Vanguard brings news, but it's forgettable 🕹

Campaign
Multiplayer
Zombies
Warzone
Worth it?
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Despite a cinematic campaign, with factual historical points and one of the best multiplayers in years in Activision's shooter franchise, Vanguard delivers a half-game, once again leaning on the battle pass system and free DLC to please the crowd.

Campaign

REVIEW: Call of Duty: Vanguard brings news, but it's forgettable — Excerpt from the Call of Duty: Vanguard campaign.

Just like the last 2 games in the COD franchise, Vanguard has a campaign that serves as an introduction to the game's most played modes: Multiplayer and Zombies. As much as, over the years, the relevance of Call of Duty campaigns has diminished, every year this is one of the features I most look forward to playing.

Once again, we are in 2rd world war, however, now with the unification of the Call of Duty universe - because of Warzone -, the story takes place in the same world that we saw in the reboot of Modern Warfare (2019) and Black ops cold war (2020).

The story has aspects based on real events, but follows a fictional line. The game begins with the presentation of a task force formed by individuals from different countries of the Allies, who were against the Nazis.

The task force is initially composed of 6 people, each from a country, who have come together for a special mission: to steal information from the "Phoenix Project", a German initiative of some officers who created several projects behind Hitler's back with the aim of dethroning the current Nazi leader and establishing the 4th Reich.

The game follows a narrativa linear, but not chronological, and relies on flashbacks to generate contexts. The linear shape makes you feel like you're in a movie, but in the action half the time.

In Vanguard, you switch between a playable mission and a plot development cutscene. The group leader, Arthur Kingsley, based on British war hero Sidney Cornell, narrates the campaign.

The “present” of the game is 1945 during the final invasion of Berlin and the fall of Nazi Germany, however we are almost always rewound to playable missions in the previous years and through which we can meet each of the main characters of the task force, as they became heroes and why they were chosen by the commander for the team.

In addition to Kingsley, we control 3 more characters in the main campaign - which we will soon meet -, mainly during flashbacks. It managed to make a connection between each of the characters and me that I was definitely not expecting.

Polina Petrova — for me the best character of the entire campaign — is a Russian sniper based on the famous “Lady of Death”, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet sniper known for having shot down 309 Nazis during World War II. In Vanguard, she is one of the protagonists of the task force and the character who receives the most depth in flashback missions.

Lucas Riggs You are the team's bomb master, so anything explosive is your responsibility and skill. The character is based on the New Zealander war hero Charles Upham. To close the main squad, we have the inconsequential pilot Wade Jackson, a character based on the American war hero Vernon Larsen.

During the campaign, we can individually control the characters and their specific abilities and advantages. Kingsley has the power to command and direct the other team members; Polina starts all missions with her sniper and you can distract enemies; Riggs can carry more explosives and aim them with ease; Wade, on the other hand, has the ability to "Focus", which allows him to see and kill enemies easily and quickly.

So you control the team during flashbacks through historic battles around the world as the story progresses in 1945 Berlin.

The format of "playable movie” is not new to the franchise, let alone the choice of setting in the 2nd world war. However, the depth explored in each character and the possibility to live each of the members of the task force increases the immersion and culminates in a final sequence - in the last mission - in which we switch control between all members.

The campaign can only have 5-7 horas, but it certainly surpasses in quality and gameplay the latest in the franchise. Vanguard's story doesn't get repetitive, introducing new aspects of gameplay to each mission — whether it's with each character's special abilities or the environment, driving cars, climbing walls and even piloting planes in frantic air battles.

It is also worth mentioning that the game has 4 levels of difficulty - which is great in terms of accessibility -, allowing anyone, with any skill, to experience the story without getting more frustrated than necessary. That doesn't mean, however, that in the “normal” I didn't die like 100 times.

Multiplayer

Now the topic that everyone is always waiting for: the Multiplayer of the new Call of Duty. To my surprise, Vanguard is a refresher on the franchise's already-beat formula. The MP is certainly the way that the Sledgehammer devoted more time and money, being clearly the high point of the game.

Some people may not know, but as it is an annual franchise, the Activision has 3 studios that produce the Call of Duty games that alternate in a 3-year cycle. This year, from Sledgehammer, we received the most content in Multiplayer since 2011 with MW3.

Are 16 maps at launch, with one more coming now in November. All the franchise's standard modes then present — team deathmatch, domination, search and destroy, etc.

The highlight here is not this, but the arrival of two novelties: Champion Hill and Combat Rhythm. Champion Hill is a new Multiplayer mode that is a mix of Battle Royale with a regular deathmatch.

In this mode, you form a duo or trio in a room with 8 teams, all of which will play against each other randomly on small maps. Each team has 12 lives and the last one to survive wins.

The dynamics are simple: you face one team at a time and you have to take lives from your opponents, buy perks and improve your weapon to survive until you become the champion.

Just like the franchise's battle royale, Warzone, this is a mode I particularly preferred to play with friends, as opposed to traditional Multiplayer which easily entertains me alone.

Another highlight here is the Combat Rhythm. Now, in the find matches menu, you can select different game rhythms that suit your play style. You can choose a tactical rhythm, with more strategic, sniper and utility games, or choose the Blitz rhythm, with crowded maps and chaos (my favorite).

Vanguard's multiplayer is a refreshing mainly because the game uses an improved version of the engine that runs Warzone, and for anyone who's spent a year in Cold War's MP, this was a necessary change.

In addition to the main news, another point worth mentioning are weapons and gameplay customization. Vanguard launched with 38 armas e 18 perks, as expected for the history of the series. However, the highlight goes to the gunsmith.

COD players are already used to setting up their game classes and spending hours testing attachments. What was already complex became even more complex: in the last games of the franchise, it was possible to equip only 5 items to your weapon - or 7 if you use a specific perk - and, in Vanguard, there are 10 by default, including even modifications to the type of ammunition of the weapon.

To close, it is worth mentioning the operator system, which now has an operator level — which allows you to level up your favorite character to unlock emotes and new skins.

Among the 16 maps offered, the widest range of weapon customization, unlockable weapon camouflage options, and new game modes, multiplayer seems to be the only mode capable of holding the playerbase for more than 6 months — me, at least. , I intend to come back to the game more often.

Zombies

Honestly, only one word can define Vanguard's Zombies mode: incomplete. The game received this mode in a year that no one expected, because Sledgehammer wouldn't normally have this category of gameplay. However, the developer responsible for zombies this year is Treyarch, the same one that developed Cold War and all zombie content released in 2020 – which was no small feat.

At launch, zombies mode only comes with the map The beginning. Mode is a hybrid of round-based maps (standard for the franchise) and Epidemic, a mode released in 2020. Thus, we have a mixed experience with a lot of potential - nothing explored so far.

In the game, you start with your chosen weapon class from the menu, in a central hub which is a modification of a Multiplayer (Stalingrad) map. From there, you can enter portals that take you to other maps — also gathered from Multiplayer — to carry out 3 types of missions.

We have the Flash, which is to survive in a small space for an amount of time; The Harvest, which is to collect runes from zombie bodies and deposit them; and we also have the Transmission, which is to survive in a small area that moves on the map.

In terms of gameplay, a lot is what we already know from Cold War — like the tin punch, mystery box, build table, armor, field upgrade, and perks. However, a few things have changed: the price of the can punch, the perks that are now free, and in drinking-from-a-chalice fountains, we no longer have weapons on the walls available for purchase mid-match.

The changes, in my view, are positive. Perks are now free, but only their first rank. You can progressively pay him to become stronger and stronger. In addition, the game added pacts, which can be acquired with hearts that are received with each completed quest.

These pacts serve to customize your gameplay and are completely random each round, meaning a possibility to generate a more roguelike experience with different builds.

The story, a very important topic, is one of the highlights of the mode. It is still intertwined with the plot introduced in Cold War, but takes place before - like a prologue. Once again, zombies also have an operator system, without having their own playable characters to the despair of fans — this is probably for Activision to continue justifying the battle pass.

But to correct the lack of depth and connection to the story, this time our field improvements are the main characters in the story. Each of the field upgrades is a artifact of an Aether being who joined with our operators to defeat the army of the dead, controlled by the Nazi general By cunning — who connected with an artifact of an Aether being called Kortifex.

The story has a gigantic potential and immersion can return to the mode with the main characters being the entities. However, the problem is not the gameplay and even less the story: it's the content. With only one map at launch, 3 basic and repeatable missions on multiplayer maps, the game becomes tiring quickly and after 2 hours I bet most people will have experienced everything it has to offer.

That, of course, not to mention the main point: the lack of an Easter Egg. The zombie mode lives on top of challenges and searches for references; it's what makes players come back to the mode every time. However, most likely because Treyarch is overwhelmed, the mode won't receive an Easter Egg until 2022.

Warzone

Now, with the integration of the Call of Duty universe, Vanguard will also be integrated into the franchise's Battle Royale. The integration will happen alongside the arrival of the game's first Battle Pass on December 2nd.

In addition, all weapons and operators will be ported to the game and Warzone will receive a new map, in the Vanguard Engine, set in the pacific, still in December.

The new map will continue to build on Warzone's lore and will somehow connect with Vanguard's history, to justify the appearance of WW2 weapons and operators.

We can expect more than 150 weapons available in Warzone from December until the arrival of controllable planes on the new map, likely similar to the Vanguard campaign.

Worth it?

Vanguard is a great experience in the campaign, although short; brings a complete multiplayer and one of the best in many years, but it fails once again in the organization and launches a zombie mode that is clearly not finished.

Costing 229 reais on PC and 279 reais on new generation consoles, the game offers a lot of content, but, in my view, won't last more than 6 months and the player base will only play it to improve weapons for Warzone — clearly the focus of the franchise and the company.

Still, the game has next-gen graphics, very few bugs, and quality optimization for the PC — the platform on which we tested the game. This review is based on 19 hours of gameplay and should reflect the initial experience of the game.

Call of Duty: Vanguard was released on November 5th for PS5, PS4, Xbox series, Xbox One and PC.