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Call of Duty: Vanguard is out on November 5, and the game will launch with a full campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies mode. Here’s everything we know about Call of Duty’s upcoming World War II-based shooter. That includes details on the development team as well as the three main modes, how it connects to Warzone, and information on what you’ll get if you play on PS4 or PS5.
Vanguard is developer Sledgehammer Games’ second title that takes place during WWII; however, this game is leaning on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in more ways than one. Vanguard will be running on an updated version of the Modern Warfare engine–which Warzone also runs on–and the campaign will focus on the early iterations of special forces. The campaign follows four different characters, each fighting in battles where a small group or single person turned the tide.
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Now Playing: Call of Duty Vanguard – Everything We Know
Vanguard’s release comes in the wake of the state of California filing a discrimination lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit alleges that Activision Blizzard has a “frat boy” culture where women and people of color are discriminated against.
The recent announcements and trailers have revealed a ton of new information about Call of Duty: Vanguard.
Table of Contents [hide]Announcement And TrailersRelease DateHow Do I Preorder?PlayStation ExclusivesWho’s Developing It?MultiplayerZombiesCampaignWarzone
Announcement And Trailers
The reveal trailer for Vanguard shows off the four areas where the campaign will take place: North Africa, the Eastern Front, the Western Front, and the Pacific. The trailer also offered glimpses of the four main characters you will be playing as on each front.
The four main characters are:
Private Lucas Riggs, 20th Battalion, Australian 9th Infantry Division, British Eighth ArmySergeant Arthur Kingsley of the 9th Parachute Battalion, British ArmyLieutenant Wade Jackson, Scouting Squadron Six, United States NavyLieutenant Polina Petrova of the 138th Rifle Division, Red Army
Vanguard got its full reveal with an in-game event for Call of Duty: Warzone. The event, which led into the reveal trailer, involved a cooperative mission to take down a train.
On October 14, Zombies mode got a worldwide reveal with a trailer that showcases demonic themes, and the video is set to a remix of Billie Eilish’s Bury a Friend.
Release Date
Call of Duty: Vanguard is releasing on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC on November 5. It will unlock in North America at 9 PM PT on November 4.Preloading is now live for those who digitally preordered on consoles. Here’s when the game will unlock based on your platform and region.
How Do I Preorder?
Call of Duty: Vanguard is now available for preorder both physically and digitally across all platforms. There are three editions of the game available, each containing different bonuses. The standard version costs $60 USD and is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
The Cross-Gen bundle costs $70 and contains both the last-gen and current-gen versions of the game (within a single platform family) plus five hours of double weapon XP. The Ultimate Edition costs $100 and comes with both gen versions of the game in addition to the Vanguard Battle Pass Bundle and Task Force One Pack.
All three versions feature preorder bonuses, including access to the multiplayer beta. The other preorder bonuses, which appear to be exclusive to the digital versions of Vanguard, are the Frontline Weapons Pack, Mastercraft Blueprint for Black Ops Cold War and Warzone, and Operator Arthur Kingsley in Cold War and Warzone. For more information, check out our Call of Duty: Vanguard preorder guide.
PlayStation Exclusives
There are several exclusive perks for those who purchase Call of Duty: Vanguard for PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5. As posted on PlayStation’s blog, PlayStation users can expect exclusive bonuses such as monthly double XP events, extra custom loadout slots, and more.
Who’s Developing It?
Call of Duty: Vanguard is being primarily developed by Sledgehammer Games, the lead developer on Call of Duty: WWII. A number of other Activision Blizzard studios are also assisting with the development of Vanguard. Treyarch, Beenox, Raven, and High Moon Studios are all confirmed to be assisting.
Multiplayer
While Vanguard will mostly be a pretty typical Call of Duty multiplayer experience, the game introduces Combat Pacing, which changes up the experience across Vanguard’s map pool based on the amount of players on the map. Players can choose between three different Combat Pacing options, or choose to play a mix of them.
Tactical: This is the standard 6v6 Call of Duty multiplayer experience.Assault: This adds more players than the traditional 6v6, but it isn’t quite as chaotic as Blitz. The player count for the beta will vary between 20-28 players.Blitz: Blitz features hectic matches as 28-48 players are crammed on the 6v6 maps. This pacing might be best for fans of modes like Modern Warfare’s Ground War and Black Ops Cold War’s Combined Arms.
Additionally, Vanguard introduces a new mode to serve as a successor to Modern Warfare 2019’s 2v2 Gunfight mode. This new multiplayer mode is a mashup of Gunfight and battle royale elements, with duos or trios competing in a series of rounds to be the last team standing. Here are our thoughts after getting hands-on with the Champion Hill alpha.
Champion Hill combines four small maps to make one large arena, where players in duos or trios will compete in 60-second rounds of a Team Deathmatch-style tournament against other squads. Every team begins with a total of 12 lives. In Champion Hill, players want to move through the rounds and work to eliminate all other squads’ life count to zero before their squad is eliminated.
In addition to the 4 maps exclusive to the Champions Hill mode, Call of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer is confirmed to have 16 standard multiplayer maps at launch:
Battle of BerlinBocageCastleDas HausDecoyDemyanskDesert SiegeDomeEagle’s NestGavutuHotel RoyaleNuma NumaOasisRed StarSub PensTuscan
Vanguard will include seven game modes:
Free for AllTeam DeathmatchKill ConfirmedDominationSearch & DestroyHardpointPatrol
Call of Duty: Vanguard will also have 12 playable operators to choose from at launch, and there will be over three dozen weapons available in the weapon pool. There are two Vanguard weapons that can be unlocked and leveled up early in Call of Duty: Warzone. Here’s how to unlock the STG 44 assault rifle and the M1 Garand tactical rifle in Warzone.
On October 28, Activision revealed details about post-launch content coming to multiplayer, which includes a remake of the Shipment map from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Here are more details on some of the post-launch content to expect for Vanguard’s multiplayer.
Zombies
Developed by Treyarch, Vanguard’s Zombies mode is confirmed to launch with the map Der Anfang. The narrative for Der Anfang will serve as a prequel to Black Ops Cold War’s Dark Aether storyline, revealing what happened before the events at Die Maschine’s Projekt Endstation.
This new map will not be a standard round-based map, and instead is designed as a new objective-based mode similar to Black Ops Cold War’s Outbreak. Additionally, Treyarch revealed some character details and discussed new game mechanics coming to Vanguard Zombies.
Campaign
The Vanguard campaign is split between four battlefronts and characters, all working towards discovering what “Project Phoenix” is. Each character is from a different country, fighting to turn the tides of war in different areas of the world before coming together for a joint mission in Berlin. The campaign makes some changes from Sledgehammer’s last outing, Call of Duty WWII, like removing health packs in favor of regenerating health.
The campaign is meant for players to feel like hammers, using fully automatic weapons and force to take down their enemies. In GameSpot’s preview of Vanguard, we were shown an early mission featuring Sgt. Arthur Kingsley, one of the playable characters and eventual squad leader. The mission follows Kingsley during Operation Tonga, where soldiers parachuted into Normandy the night before D-Day. Kingsley has a rough landing and loses his rifle, forcing him to sneak around German soldiers before he finds a weapon. After that was a mixture of some stealth gameplay mixed with close-range combat, where Kinglsey needed to defend himself from being overwhelmed by enemy forces.
In a recent PlayStation blog post, members of Sledgehammer Games’ narrative team gave detailed looks at some of Vanguards operators and the inspirations behind their creation.
Players can get further familiar with some of the main campaign operators with Call of Duty: Vanguard’s comic book. This will likely be a digital release, and no specific details or date were given, but the comic is set to release prior to Call of Duty: Vanguard’s launch.
Warzone
On October 28, Activision gave the first details on the new Warzone Pacific update that will launch on December 2 with the start of Vanguard’s Season 1 of post-launch content. Warzone Pacific will launch with the new Caldera map, which is described as an island featuring lush forests and rocky crags, as well as white sand beaches and mysterious ruins. There is also a dormant volcano that towers over the map. This new Warzone map sounds huge, as Activision boasts that Caldera has over 200 points of interest to explore.
Warzone Pacific will include standard battle royale modes that players are familiar with, but it will also introduce the new Vanguard Royale, which is a mode focused on aerial combat. Players can take to the skies for some World War II-era dogfighting or maneuver AA guns to combat the aerial attacks. Additionally, Warzone’s Rebirth Island will also remain as the smaller secondary battle royale map.
The introduction of Warzone Pacific will also bring the recently revealed Ricochet Anti-Cheat Driver to hopefully help reduce the hacker population in Warzone. And being built on the same tech and engine as Call of Duty: Vanguard, Warzone Pacific will support fully optimized cross-play, cross-progression, and cross-gen support.
