Call of Duty in Worst State in Years – What’s Wrong in Warzone & Vanguard?

Call of Duty: Vanguard and the Battle Royale Warzone are in crisis. Both shooters are plagued by many errors and problems, so even the 2nd joint season has been postponed. MeinMMO author Maik Schneider shows you what’s currently going on in the shooter series.

This is the situation:

CoD on console and PC in crisis – what’s going on?

For MeinMMO I have been supporting Call of Duty since the start of Modern Warfare at the end of 2019. The title revived the outdated shooter series, which was already considered a problem franchise by publisher Activision after the rather weak Black Ops 4 from 2018.

CoD MW 2019 and the free Battle Royale Warzone then made for a brilliant comeback of the largest shooter series in the world. In addition, CoD: Mobile was also very successful, but we want to limit ourselves to the console and PC titles.

Because with the two current titles – Warzone and Vanguard – the house blessing is crooked. Players are complaining en masse about bugs in both games, lack of weapon balance, or problems with the gameplay challenges that are an important part of long-term motivation.

I would therefore like to go into a bit more detail about what is currently going wrong with CoD, how the developers are reacting to it and what I think of the current situation.

CoD Warzone: Crashes and invisible skins

What’s wrong with Warzone? The currently very negative mood for free Battle Royale is a development of the last few months. The old map “Verdansk” ran smoothly, the weapons were well balanced. But cheaters plagued the free-to-play shooter.

With the announcement of “RICOCHET” the mood went up. The expectations of the new anti-cheat system were gigantic. Many players took the announcement to mean that once implemented, there would be no more cheaters on PC. However, nothing came of it.

Because the kernel driver from RICOCHET is not a ban tool that automatically throws all cheaters out of the game. It is another analysis tool that helps in detecting cheaters.

When the tool then went online worldwide, a week after the release of the new Map Caldera, a certain disillusionment set in. Cheats continue to exist, and with expectations so high, disappointment almost erupted.

Added to this were the problems on the new map:

• Some players find the new map too vast
• The performance on the consoles causes problems
• Frequent game crashes on PlayStation and Xbox
• Graphic bugs, broken textures, the old demon weapon glitch
• Invisible skins run across the map – so even normal players can “cheat” without having to expect a penalty
• The Christmas event annoyed many

An old but well-functioning Warzone map was exchanged for a broken island paradise. This, combined with the disappointment with the anti-cheat program, has created a bad mood in the community.

CoD now pulled the ripcord and postponed the 2nd season by a few weeks.

CoD Vanguard: Unbalanced and zombie disappointment

What is wrong with Vanguard? The latest premium CoD was already under an unlucky star when it was announced. The setting in World War II was generally worse than the last two CoD adventures.

Sales then remained well below those of its predecessor, Cold War. And Cold War sold worse overall than its predecessor Modern Warfare 2019.

There wasn’t much hype about Vanguard overall. And then there were the problems in the game.

My squad was particularly plagued by connection issues in the team lobby. Then I read that it should help if none of us go to the weaponsmith while looking for a game. We still ban it to this day.

If you then make it into the match, you are confronted with OP weapons. For almost every weapon class there is an option with which the already short time-to-kill can be reduced even further.

In addition, there are the strong series of kills like “Flammnaut” and the “Hundestaffel”, for which there is no reasonable counter. There is now a solution for the flame tank suit Flammnaut. But if someone sets their dogs on you, you can pretty much count on one or the other death.

At least the new fire grenades have now been nerfed.

In addition, some of the systems for long-term motivation were broken. Until recently, it was not possible to unlock the “Atomic” skins – the highest reward in weapon skins for completing many challenges.

Then there’s zombie mode.

Call of Duty tried something new here. Instead of a survival map with a big story easter egg, there was an area that apparently continues to grow with each season.

As a result, the potential is only slowly unfolding and the zombie adventure at the end of the Vanguard lifecycle may be a fantastic co-op experience. For now, however, the current zombie mode is just a shadow of its own.

Vanguard generally runs a little smoother than Warzone. But the current CoD will also benefit from the postponement of Season 2.

Conclusion: 2 weeks of extra time is a good start

It is difficult to estimate how much time it will take to fix the issues raised in the two games. But one thing is certain: CoD is in its worst condition in years.

On the one hand the mood is down, on the other hand there are many problems in the games. In addition, there are the sales of Vanguard, some of which are far behind the figures of the predecessors (via videogamechronicle.com).

There have been sessions where I’ve been more upset about the game’s issues than enjoying my kills. That hasn’t been the case for a very long time and it’s frustrating.

If there are OP weapons, I use them too. If there are connection problems, I’m more patient. If there are cheaters in the match, I start a new round. But all at once is too much even for me. And I’m otherwise rather frugal when it comes to that.

The extra 2 weeks to fix the shooters is a good start. It remains to be seen to what extent the developers can solve the problems over time.

In a letter from the developers to the community, those responsible assert that they feel our frustration and are working hard to get the problems under control. And I keep my fingers crossed that it works.