Call of Duty: Vanguard

Even before this game's release, people were ragging all over it, saying things like "Battlefield will kill Call of Duty" or "we don't want another World War 2 shooter." And now that the game's been out for a while, I genuinely think 90% of the hate for Vanguard is completely unreasonable.

Campaign was great. With the way the levels/storytelling is ordered, the campaign was more centered around the main characters rather than the actual plot itself. It's a bit weird, but there's a lot of stories that have already been told with World War 2, so I didn't really mind it, especially since the cast nailed their roles.

If you liked Multiplayer in Modern Warfare, Vanguard's isn't really that different. Unless you really hate the World War 2 setting a lot. It's mostly the same with mechanics like tactical sprinting and mounting returning, but there are tons of other things that have been significantly improved on. The camping problem has largely been solved with the introduction of destructible environments and movement feels a lot smoother. Not to say that there aren't any issues, things like the utterly broken shotguns and numerous bugs have been very frustrating to deal with since launch, but I've been enjoying the multiplayer a LOT more than Cold War. The amount of content is great too; 36-38 weapons and 20 maps AT LAUNCH that singlehandedly outclass both Modern Warfare and Cold War in both quantity and quality, minus a few bad apples.

The Zombies mode is the result of Activision putting Treyarch through the wringer since 2018. As of writing this, there's currently only one map called "Der Anfang" and it's Treyarch's attempt to merge classic round based Zombies and the new modes (Outbreak and Onslaught) introduced in Cold War. It's INCREDIBLY boring, repetitive, doesn't even have an easter egg, and should have been post launch content at BEST. If there's anything remotely good I can say about it, you actually have to spend in-game currency to upgrade perks and field upgrades now instead of having them maxed out at the start, which prevents having an overabundance of it like with Cold War. Overall, just buy Cold War if you really want a Zombies game. If Activision is reading this, stop forcing Treyarch on projects and giving them unreasonable deadlines.

On another note, this game seems to have an issue with attracting strange complaints, including accusations of being woke and historical inaccuracies. Most of these are really weird. I don't really see the "wokeness" in the campaign; unless you're complaining about a black guy being the lead character for some reason. Cold War was not scrutinized this badly for historical inaccuracy so it doesn't really make any sense for people to do the same to Vanguard.

Overall, if you don't like Modern Warfare 2019, I probably wouldn't recommend this game for you. Otherwise, I think it's very fun even in spite of the terrible Zombies mode.

This game is great took all the best features of mw2019 unlike cold war it actually improved the gunsmith by allowing you to have 10 attachments and made it ww2 its worth it over battlefield 2042.

Pleased to see a lot of cool new features added into this game, especially the addition of being able to select combat pacing. Gameplay feels like a big improvement. For me the multiplayer would be a 9/10 if it had better maps, but unfortunately some of them feel a bit boring.

Zombies on the other hand is sadly the worst I've ever seen it by quite a landslide. It no longer has the feeling of being dark and scary like WaW zombies was, and instead feels like a bit of a ridiculous arcade game. The addition of things such as elder gods, flying orbs and land barriers etc totally ruin the feel of zombies mode for me. If you play with zombie health bars on (another thing I think is ridiculous for fortunately can be turned off) then you'll find that the game is just a big clump of colours flying all over the place. I have no idea why they'd decide to get rid of round based zombies in favour of this but hopefully they'll change their minds soon, and let it return to its roots. If zombies was still the same as the Waw and Black Ops days, then I would say that this game is the best Cod we've seen since the PS3/360 days and would probably deserve a 10/10. However as it is it's probably a 7.5/10.

There is a whole world of difference between Vanguard and Cold War.

Campaign - It's alright, nothing great.

Multiplayer - Pretty average, the operators are quite horrible though Zombies - Could not have done a worse job. I don't understand how a game can get worse from being the best at Zombies. I'm going back to play zombies on Cold War. This one is just ridiculous.

Please allow players who have bought all games to merge and play as they feel like. For example - It would be pretty cool if I could use weapons from Warzone and Vanguard to play Zombies in Cold War.

Since Dec 6th you've already merged the ranking progression. Why not do this as well?

It also really upsets me how they took the battle pass o it of Cold War and restricted it to Vanguard. Might as well let us have a crossover. We already gave you the money ; now give us what we want!

You may think Im a halo or battlefield fanboy, but no, I love fps and I love call of duty. My first call of duty, funnily, was world at war, and I can just remember how magical it was for to play it. To this day it is my favorite call of duty along with bo1. Now, you may have probably seen my 4/10 am immediately thought my review was nonsensical but hear me out. All this criticism is in hopes of a better future.

REVIEW STARTS HERE: I will review the 3 aspects of the game and rate each of them

Campaign: Terrible, just terrible. One of the worst Cod campaigns in history. It has you playing through flashbacks of the main characters past. The idea was terrible and the executions was also terrible. This campaign felt like it was setting up for a story, not making its own story. The gameplay is also bad, as the game holds your hand throughout the campaign, and doesn't give you any freedom. Although being linear doesn't make a campaign bad, if the story is bad as well, there is no redeeming part about the campaign. It was no fun to play through the campaign but to be fair, campaigns aren't the real attraction of the game.

1/10

Multiplayer: While not great, it is definitely the best portion of this game. The multiplayer is not bad, but it takes a step back from past call of duty multiplayers. It is generic, and it feels as if you played the same thing before. Cold war did not have a great multiplayer, but at least it did not devolve in the same way vanguard did. Sure, there is combat pacing, which seemed like a super innovative idea, but in practice, it either made the game insanely slow, or you getting killed as soon as you spawn. The game lacks the balance between both. I need not talk about sbmm as there are already enough issues.

5/10

Zombies: Zombies is generally that last source of entertainment, for bad a call of duty. Its generally a redeeming part of the game. In fact my enjoyment of many recent cod games as purely relied on zombies. The sad thing is, that treyarch, the zombie king, managed to mess up zombies. It is so hard to do that. They have removed all the fun and quirky guns, and zombies literally was a breeze. There was no content. It was literally multiplayer maps thrown in, and you shoot at hordes of zombies for about 1 hour. Thats it, and zombies is done. Zombies was terrible.

1/10

Overall Multiplayer is the core part of the game, but that game lacks anything significant that makes it new and enjoyable. Instead, it ends up being a massive step back from past cods. The zombies and campaign were even worse. It is hard for me to play this game, and I will likely not touch it again when battlefield 2042 and the new warzone map comes out. This was sad but expected. :(