Call Of Duty: Vanguard review: a tumultuous trinity

Call of Duty: Vanguard is a three-game story. As is sometimes the case, several of the pillars lift the package and one lowers it. Vanguard’s campaign is weak, but multiplayer and zombies lead the title to victory. Let’s analyze each experience.

First we will get the hard out of the way; The campaign is ambitious and beautiful in scope, taking players to multiple key locations, including Stalingrad, the Pacific, and even North Africa. While this shows excellent environmental diversity and its pulsing soundtrack begs the blood to pump, everything around these elements remains stagnant. Since the narrative jumps from scene to scene, none of the characters carry weight. They are lifeless pieces of cardboard that do not even reach the level of action film of a note.

These characters are placed in boring segments that are as boring and formulated as possible, with no real opportunity to shine. While the large arenas full of opponents to fight are nothing new for Call of Duty, it is even more tedious to engage in the non-arena segments. There is no cool subterfuge mission to break the monotony, just tasks that will leave you begging to clean up another murder room. It’s a shame, because some of these settings and characters feel like they should have been dull.

Vanguard has all the trimmings of a ready-made Enemy at the gates Sniper vs. sniper scenario. Unfortunately, he drops the ball and delivers one trash-filled arena after another to kill without even realizing that sniper fantasy. You must run under desks, fighting an endless work of flashes of light, while climbing rocks and walls. Incredibly annoying trial-and-error stealth segments are surprisingly juxtaposed with bombastic action sequences. I found it disconcerting that one of the game’s characters basically has superhero powers, allowing them to see enemies through obstructing landscape and automatically aim on demand with a combination of divine vision and bullet time. The multitude of settings and segments look beautiful, but good looks can’t save this trip.

The narrative never decides whether it wants to stay anchored in the harsh realities of WWII or go tough, with ludicrous cartoons of whiny villains who would be more at ease in a bad comic book. This dissonance is pronounced, strange, and cuts through the soul of the entire experience. Call of Duty campaigns tend to range from the bizarre to the spectacular to the emotionally resonant; this is neither of those and it’s easy to skip. I’ll marvel at how this campaign made a revenge-driven badass sniper scenario feel like being stuck in traffic for years to come.

Multiplayer is successful, but not due to the addition of a pistol, superspeed, or jetpack mechanic. Key to online offering are some high-impact decision tools in addition to capture and customization, which are already best-in-class. The most impactful device for core systems is the addition of a Combat Pacing dial. With Combat Pacing, you can influence the player count and participation time of all the activities you prefer. This probably sounds small, but it’s great because you can select exactly the type of multiplayer matches you want, in addition to the main game modes like Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, or Domination. When I felt like throwing a bunch of grenades while packing a shotgun loaded with incendiary ammo, I dialed in Blitz mode, which offers instant action with almost immediate engagement time. When you wanted something you couldn’t see a player on right away and you had time to aim a rifle before taking a shot, the tactical timing was perfect. Even if you don’t want to spin the dials, Assault is an excellent resource for standard Call of Duty multiplayer.

Combat Pacing is subtle but more important than any of the new multiplayer offerings. Still, Vanguard has a handful of new modes. Patrol offers a mobile Hardpoint to protect, but “patrol” around a map, and Champion Hill gives players some small-scale shenanigans to take part in. Champion Hill is kind of an evolution of Gunfight mode, with more player options and many teams all playing tournament-style at the same time. Selecting your path to victory through downtown shopping and taking on other teams for lives and cash has a different feel in terms of small-scale skirmishes, and I enjoyed it. Of course, the Gunsmith offers a host of options to explore for multiplayer, allowing you to tailor each weapon to your heart’s content, up to and including ammo types for a bit more bang.

Last but certainly not least is Zombies, which Treyarch designed. The studio’s undead intuition rarely fails, and Call of Duty: Vanguard is poised to lead the zombies down a fantastic path. This iteration is a bit like a roguelike zombie dungeon crawl, and that’s pretty impressive. With hints of the recent Outbreak mode, players are tasked with taking down a demonic entity while wielding its own otherworldly powers, including rings of fire and icy doom, allowing it to summon a blizzard. All the fun Zombie decorations like Pack-A-Punch, Mystery Box, and other upgrades are served up hub-style on a base where players hang out between missions. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll have a city break; Zombies mode is as fast as ever with a neon glow of arcade action and streamlined enhancements that keep you in the action.

With your team, choose from a selection of classic shooting activities in which you will escort a magic item, survive until time runs out, or kill enemies to earn rewards. We have seen many of these elements before, but they are organized in an incredibly powerful way. For example, I appreciated the lack of tedious travel time found in Outbreak – click on a portal and you will proceed to the next task. Special skills acquired and level ups after portals that can change your gear substantially. Essentially, Vanguard distills a lot of the cool stuff about Zombies into one compact package and then spreads cool pranks and dialogue all over the place. Fortunately, you can still drop monkey bombs. However, nothing in the story better than the Easter egg was in the version I played; they are expected to arrive with season 1.

The Call of Duty: Vanguard campaign misses the mark, but the multiplayer and zombies do the heavy lifting to get the title to a good place. If you’re more interested in the single-player experience, you can skip this year’s entry, but if you’re into the other modes, Call of Duty is still a great option for shooting, looting, and executing zombies.