Some ole, same ole

While I have been a fan of the Call of Duty games since CoD 2 on the Xbox 360; I, like so many of others have gotten tired of WW2 shooters. They have been done to death, and sadly Call of Duty: Vanguard takes its series back to its roots. But instead of the usual storming the beach at Normandy; they take a different approach to the campaign, sadly the multiplayer is just more of the same but in a different era.

The entirety of the Call of Duty franchise has been transformed since 2019, with the introduction and massive success of its Warzone mode. Starting with 2019’s Modern Warfare, each entry since seems to be built around the Warzone game mode. If you don’t know, Warzone is Call of Duty’s take on battle royale. Each game since its release has had to work their weapons and other things into the Warzone mode, While I am not a fan of WW2 games, I do think a lot of the weapons from the era are cool. Bringing back the ‘Gunsmith’ where players can customize the attachments and skins; it’s possible to make these weapons look unrecognizable to their original models. This isn’t a bad thing, but I mention it so that it’s understood that being historical realistic is NOT what this game is about.

MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $59.99

In fact, the campaign is more like a Michael Bay movie than anything else; which further cements that CoD: Vanguard is made for enjoyment and rather bombastic thrills. So, I haven’t played a campaign in CoD since the Black Ops trilogy but I must say while I thoroughly enjoyed a few of the missions the overall story in Vanguard is more fluff than anything else. Players take control of a team of allied soldiers, brought together from around the world for a final mission to stop the Nazi menace once and for all. Most of the campaign missions are flashbacks which help to let players know some history and back story about the new team; things like how Russian sniper Polina Petrova earned her nickname “Lady Nightingale” and how the team’s leader Arther Kingsley was tried by fire to become the leader he is in the game. Some missions will even see players piloting vehicles, one of the more frustrating missions for me was the bombing of aircraft carriers with Wade Jackson. Flight Simulator it certainly isn’t, controlling the airplane is difficult, lining up shots was almost impossible and the lack of basic defensive aerial maneuvers just feels unnatural for a fighter jet level.

While I enjoyed all of the performance’s’ by the main cast, Dominic Monaghan of Lost fame stole the show. In CoD: Vanguard he plays a timid Nazi interrogator named Jannick Richter who is tasked with finding out what the player’s team is up too. While he isn’t the main antagonist of the game, he is by far the most interesting. While the main villain starts off quite strong with his best Hans Landa impression from the movie Inglorious Basterds; he quickly devolves into a cardboard cutout villain with no new or interesting motivations for his machinations.

Graphically the campaign is phenomenal; from the lighting to the textures, it was a feast for the eyes. While the more open expansive mission levels look better than the drab and standard hallways, even the buildings and things looked really good. You may have noticed I specified ‘in the campaign’ the graphics were good… and that’s because in Multiplayer; where most gamers will probably spend the majority of their time..its really hit or miss. One map had blades of grass that looked like someone cut up green tissue paper and glued it to the ground. Aside from the graphics the multiplayer mode is really just more of the same. Spawn points are an issue just like always, campers are an issue only this time Vanguard allows players to shoot down and thru some walls. So, campers will shoot out a small section of a wall and wait, I was killed multiple times because I wasn’t paying attention to the walls. All of the usual pain points seem to be present here, the more developers try to stop things like ‘quick-scoping’ and campers; the players come up with a counter for it almost as fast.

The biggest problem is CoD: Vanguard feels like the least innovative Call of Duty in years. I think a lot of that has to do with Warzone, and the fact that developers HAVE to ensure that their game can be compatible with that battle royale. The fact that so much has to go into making sure it all works together; I just feel like it has to be hampering the developer’s creativity. In my opinion Call of Duty as a whole need to take a year off and regroup, come back with something as memorable as the original Modern Warfare was when it launched. If it’s a matter of money (and I doubt that it is) developers could lean into Warzone, they already are making a killing on all the microtransactions but just update Warzone like Epic does for Fortnite. Then after a year surprise people with something fantastic… I know this will never happen, but a man can dream.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.