Call of Duty: Vanguard brings COD back to WWII, first details

This year’s Call of Duty takes the conflict into WWII, much like the previous title from lead developer Sledgehammer Games, Call of Duty: World War II, did it in 2017. The new game from the studio, Call of Duty: Vanguard, which launches Nov. 5, will span the global conflict of World War II on four fronts and tell the story of what Sledgehammer calls the birth of special forces operators.

Publisher Activision and Sledgehammer Games Officially Revealed Obligations: Vanguard on Thursday, promising a different take on the well-mined WWII. In the game’s single-player campaign, players will experience war from the point of view of four soldiers – Sgt. Arthur Kingsley of Britain’s Ninth Parachute Battalion; Lieutenant Polina Petrova of the Soviet 138th Rifle Division; Captain Wade Jackson of the United States Scouting Squadron Six (Navy); and 2nd Lt. Lucas Riggs of the 20th Australian Battalion.

Those four soldiers, shown in a trailer earlier this week, are based on real-world fighters, Sledgehammer Games campaign creative director David Swenson said during a preview of Call of Duty: Vanguard In the past week. Swenson and Vanguard Game director Josh Bridge said the studio, with the help of historical adviser Marty Morgan, wanted to focus on stories about epic tide-turning battles in various locations for tracking WWII.

However, before Sledgehammer developers went into detail about their new game, studio director Aaron Halon addressed the lawsuit against owner and publisher Activision Blizzard. The company faces wide-ranging allegations that it maintains a toxic work environment that, particularly at Blizzard Entertainment, is hostile to women, pays them less and subjects them to sexual harassment, and that perpetrators are not punished in any meaningful way, according to a lawsuit filed. by the California Department of Housing and Fair Employment in July. Halon said that “harassment of any kind is against everything we stand for as a studio,” and that Sledgehammer is “committed to making sure all team members feel safe. […] and respected ”regardless of gender or ethnicity. During the presentation, many of the Sledgehammer developers (including former Polygon reporter Alexa Ray Corriea) appeared to discuss the development of the game.

Following that preamble, Sledgehammer COO Andy Wilson spoke of the tremendous growth the studio has experienced since its formation in 2009. In addition to the main studio in Foster City, California, Sledgehammer has expanded to a location in Melbourne, Australia (with more than 150 employees) and another location in Toronto. Over 450 people work on Sledgehammer, but like other Call of Duty games, it’s not the only studio contributing. Developer Raven Software will oversee Call of Duty: Vanguardintegration with War zone, the free-to-play Call of Duty battle royale game, while Treyarch will develop a Zombies mode for Vanguard who will come across call of Duty Black OpsCold War‘s History of the zombies.

But Sledgehammer revealed little about multiplayer, zombies, or how War zone will work with Vanguardand vice versa, during your preview. Instead, it was primarily focused on the game’s WWII-set single-player campaign. Players will battle across North Africa, on the eastern and western fronts, and in the Pacific, across four playable characters in a story that Sledgehammer calls “historically inspired” and “rooted but not indebted” to that world history. real.

Game director Josh Bridge described the campaign as being driven by “human stories” told through “a contemporary lens” on the story. “We want him to be identified today,” Bridge said. but it will also be a blockbuster “cinematic” story in the modern Call of Duty style.

We were shown a section of the game focused on the British paratrooper Sgt. Arthur Kingsley, who is based on the real-life British Sergeant. Sidney Cornell, who parachutes into enemy territory. After flying through bad weather and nearly drowning after his parachute burns out, Kingsley finds himself trapped behind enemy lines, without a rifle and struggling to survive. It is pure terror. Kingsley, armed only with a knife and hidden in the darkness from German patrols, was searching for supplies and ammunition, shooting his enemies through wooden planks and broken windows. The night scene ended in suspense, with Kingsley targeting a soldier silhouetted by the light of a burning windmill, unsure whether his target was friend or foe.

The scene evoked the visceral tension of Call of Duty: Modern WarfareThe “Clean House” mission, with its limited viewpoints and threats around every corner. Vanguard employs the next generation graphics technology from that game, giving the WWII game a highly believable and photorealistic look. In our short preview, which runs on PlayStation 5, Vanguard It already looked like one of the most visually stunning Call of Duty games to date.

Beyond the single-player campaign, Sledgehammer and Activision promise a strong set of cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. In addition to the main Call of Duty multiplayer, on 20 multiplayer maps on day one, Vanguard It will also feature a new mode called Champion Hill, a tournament-style head-to-head arena mode in 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3. Sledgehammer promises more details on Champion Hill in the lead up to launch.

Call of Duty: Vanguard It will be released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC via Battle.net, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on Friday, November 5, 2021.