Call of Duty: Vanguard Review

Call of Duty: Vanguard is a bit of a different beast in the long-running love-to-hate-on FPS franchise.  However, contrary to many people's opinions, it's not all for bad reasons.  While this review is going to be a bit different given that it’s being published nearly a full year after the game’s release, in many ways, this is going to be your ultimate guide for purchasing Vanguard and if the game will be worth full price to fit your gaming preferences.  For this review, I’ll first cover the campaign, then multiplayer, and lastly, the little game mode that could, zombies.  For each game mode, I will first cover the bad, the mixed, then the good, simply because I’m an optimist and like to end things on a positive note.

The lead developer of this Call of Duty title, Sledgehammer Games, has made some changes for their third go-around in their development cycle, going for a more gritty and grounded feel compared to the sci-fi tone of 2014’s Advanced Warfare and the more nostalgic apple pie flavor of 2017’s WWII.  The themes of the game all stem from Vanguard’s campaign, which begins with you stepping into the shoes of Novak as you hop from two parallel running trains killing Nazis (and, let’s be honest, Nazis are pretty far up there when it comes to the enjoyability of video game bullet sponges).  As you reach the target, Novak, along with the rest of their team, gets captured and held in a Berlin prison cell for the duration of the game as a majority of the missions are flashbacks; building character, background, and motivation for each of the squad members.

So firstly, let me begin with something that was laughable from the get-go.  The AI is just dumb.  Your squad mates will advance on the field even when there are still enemies present, enemies will be six feet from you, look you in the eye, then run the other direction, and some enemies are just… Invincible.  That is, unless you attack them the way the game wants you to attack them, then they’ll go down like a cardboard cutout of a house of playing cards.  Also, the game is historically inaccurate, and no, I’m not talking about weapons from Advanced Warfare making an appearance in multiplayer or Raul Menendez showing up in Warzone either; I’m talking about the StG, which was manufactured and used by the Germans in World War II.  Well, gamers, I found that weapon while on a mission in the Pacific theater, which is where America and Japan were fighting- not Germany.  It might be just a gameplay decision, and to some it may not make a lick of a difference, but to me, who has been an absolute history freak since grade school, it was perhaps the most irksome thing since the invention of carbonated water (and don’t get me started on that).  Beyond the AI and the (slight) historical inaccuracies, I could not find a single other completely negative thing, which was honestly astonishing, even if there are a few mixed aspects of the campaign.

Alright, so Call of Duty is known for being over the top, but this game surprisingly brings it back down to the original days of the franchise, with only sparse moments of blockbuster spectacle to lighten the sullen tone of the dark story.  Some may not like this- I, on the other hand, absolutely loved it.  However, I can see the appeal for that Modern Warfare style campaign that has nukes going off every other mission to satisfy the cravings of the average adrenaline addict, so it’s up in the air if you may like the down-to-Earth tone of Vanguard.    That leads into my next topic, which is the fact that this campaign doesn’t have any intel, collectibles, or anything of the sort.  It’s focused solely on the mission at hand, which, again, some may like, so they don’t have to go out of their way searching for teddy bear number 115, but others may dislike, who are achievement or trophy hunters and love to beat a game to 100% completion no matter the hundreds of hours it may take, so again, it depends on your playstyle.  Next is the dialogue, which can honestly be pretty hokey at points.  However, other times, it can be some of the most satisfying and badass stuff said by a character in any Call of Duty game, so, you may not know what you’re going to get, but all in all, it’s in service of the story.  This next one is strange.  So you know how when you die in the campaign of a Modern Warfare game, it shows a quote about war, or conflict?  Well in Vanguard, it shows a quote from one of the fictional squad members, oftentimes about… The other fictional squad members.  At first it’s a bit jarring, but as you get to know the characters, it begins to become endearing in a way, that Sledgehammer Games trusted their writers to that extent.  All of this brings me to the pacing of the missions.  They are… Strange.  Imagine a mission that’s just too short for your liking, then double it, so now it’s too long.  Usually the missions have two main objectives, so if you play it to one objective, you won’t get your fill- but if you play the full mission, you may get more than you bargained for.  Luckily, the campaign gets exponentially better as you play through each mission, and the paragraph about the good things will far outweigh both the bad and the mixed.

As I mentioned, this campaign is gritty and grounded, but also dark as hell, with some horror elements mixed in to top it all off.  The villains (I refuse to call them antagonists because they are straight-up ripped from the pages of a comic book, VILLAINS) are some real evil Nazis with some real evil agendas (I literally got goosebumps a couple times) that may change the fate of the end of World War II, so when you see them doing their real evil nafarious evil stuff during the cutscenes (which are beautifully done, by the way) in-between missions, you’re witnessing some of the best villainy the Call of Duty franchise has to offer.  Granted, they’re not as memorable as Black Ops II’s Menendez, or Modern Warfare’s Makarov, but let’s just say a certain cutscene may have you whispering some expletives under your breath.  While we’re on that, let me also say there were some moments that actually had me cheering.  I kid you not.  I screamed, “yes!”  Like a schoolgirl when some moments played out or when I accomplished certain things.  Since we’re talking about memorable things in the campaign, let’s talk about that squad.  At first they seem like the usual Call of Duty ordeal; people to die in order to make the story more dramatic, but no, you actually begin to care about these characters, and each person who plays the game will most likely have a certain favorite, depending on their personality and nationality.  Lastly, I must say, the last mission in Vanguard is by far and away one of the best missions in any Call of Duty title.  It may even be my favorite.  I won’t spoil anything.  Okay, fine, I’ll put spoilers in the very last paragraph of my review if you’re interested. Anyway, to sum it up, Vanguard’s campaign is fantastic, and rivals World at War for being the best World War II campaign in Call of Duty history, in my humble opinion.

Okay, multiplayer; the most popular game mode in Call of Duty, and boy, this one is a doozy. Let me start out with the elephant in the multiplayer map. There’s no FLOW to these maps. Now, look, I’m going to be completely candid, Treyarch is my favorite developer on all fronts, and I love how their maps flow. However, Sledgehammer Games just… Haven’t quite nailed it in that department yet. It was fun in Advanced Warfare because you had an Exo suit to help boost you around if you couldn’t navigate the maps, but the maps in Vanguard? They’re like mazes set inside labyrinths, and somehow, every other player knows the map better than you. Granted, I’m a year late to the game, but still, you’d think my skill from Cold War would carry over at least some, right? Wrong. So yeah. Pretty chaotic maps. The physics are also weird as all get out. When you toss a grenade, it kind of… waggles? While in the air? Is that normal? Eh, not a big deal, but what’s a bigger deal is that the movement speed feels off. Nothing crazy, just… off. Maybe a bit too clunky. Lastly for the cons, the sound design was, honestly, abysmal. It was white noise sometimes, and that’s being generous. I want to hear the sounds of war! Battles! Gunfights! Explosions! Not the sounds of… Well, I can’t even tell, but it certainly isn’t immersive in any way.

Now for the mixed aspects of multiplayer, of which there’s really only one. The gunfights are messy. Which may be what Sledgehammer Games are going for, and it may be something you’re into as well, but personally, I wasn’t into it, so I decided to throw it into the mixed category.

Now for the good. First of all; Gibbing is back! The violent arm-severing, head-exploding style of gameplay returns after taking a break during Cold War. How delightful! Also, the environment is somewhat interactive. Doors can be opened and closed, there are breakable walls, and even the tires can be popped on vehicles, which is a very nice touch. There is also an advanced movement system compared to last years title. Players have the ability to peek, mount their weapon, stealth takedown, and tactical sprint, which were all sorely missed in Cold War. Lastly, the graphics. It’s no surprise the graphics look good in a Call of Duty game, and to most, it would be surprising if they looked anything but, however Sledgehammer Games pulled it off once again with a gorgeous game that is sometimes unfortunately washed out by an unsaturated color palette in some maps. Multiplayer would be about an average entry in the Call of Duty franchise, but Sledgehammer' Games’ failure (or is it insistence?) to make chaotic maps without flow make it one of the less enjoyable titles, which is unfortunate, given their absolute stellar performance with the campaign.

Drumroll, please…For zombies! Treyarch is back after Cold War’s super-fun rendition of zombies for another swing at the game mode that’s prevailed for now over thirteen years. Unfortunately, Treyarch’s latest outing in the zombies universe is on the rather very bad side of things compared to their recent installments, which could most likely be attributed to Activision/Blizzard’s decision to cut down the budget of the zombies team, who also, by the way, is a different team than usual. To start, everything, and I mean everything is laggy. Literally playing a solo game still has lag. So that’s a thing. Also, the HUD is, to put it bluntly, abysmal. The points are too small, and, well, everything is too small, except for the mini-map, which is enormously annoying. There’s also the demon-like entities speaking to you as you play which are just annoying as hell. “They’re flanking you!” Yes… I’m aware. I’m training the zombies, demon lady. Then there’s the exfil feature introduced in Cold War. It was a great addition in the previous game, where you would basically go push a button and race to the extraction point where you would then kill all the zombies in the area so the chopper could pick you up and you could end your game. It was simple enough with a good enough learning curve- then there’s Vanguard, where when you start the “exfil,” dozens of zombies and special boss zombies all rush at you as quickly as they can, or, in many cases, zombies with ranged attacks throw or SHOOT at you. WHAT? Zombies is where I go to NOT be shot at in my Call of Duty game. So… That’s unfortunate. Very, very, very unfortunate.

Now for the mixed in zombies, which is honestly just a slightly better negative aspect. The maps… They aren’t great. The only decent map is a World at War remaster (or reimagining, I suppose), being Shi No Numa. Let’s see, this is Shi No Numa’s fourth iteration now, after the original World at War map, the Black Ops remaster, and the Black Ops III: Zombies Chronicles remaster. Unfortunately, all the other maps just suck, and that’s coming from a diehard Treyarch fan.

Finally, some good stuff about zombies. So, first off, it’s a part of the Dark Aether storyline, being a prequel to the events of Cold War zombies, which had a spectacular story. (Which could be considered a negative, given that we already know where the events of Vanguard zombies will take us.) Another positive is the fact that the operators have much more characterization than they initially did in Cold War (even though they later added better lines for characters deeper into the game’s lifecycle). By far the BEST thing Vanguard zombies does is the World at War style of music used in the maps. That’s it. Is that a good thing? Sure. Is it a good thing that that’s the best thing? Absolutely not.

So, to conclude this overly long review, Call of Duty: Vanguard is a mixed bag. With one of the worst, if not the worst, zombies installments to date, a below average multiplayer, and an absolutely stellar campaign, Vanguard is full of some of the highest highs and lowest lows of any Call of Duty to date. I can’t recommend purchasing this at the full $69.99 price tag, but buying it used at a discounted price is actually a very good idea. While I can’t see anyone enjoying zombies, you may enjoy multiplayer depending on your playstyle, and the campaign will almost certainly knock your Nazi-killing socks off. With all of that said, I’m going to give Call of Duty: Vanguard 3.5 Stars out of 5.

I’ve been Bailey, and this has been the BaileyBlog. Until next time, folks.