"Call of Duty Vanguard," the next mainline entry in the wildly popular Call of Duty franchise, will feature an entirely new squad-based multiplayer mode, a campaign that includes major battles in the four main theaters of World War II, and environments that will react and will change in response to gunfire and explosions. Set for release on November 5th, it is also the first major title launch for video game publisher Activision Blizzard since the state of California filed a blatant sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit against the company on July 20.
Sledgehammer Games, the Activision-owned game development studio that made "Vanguard", was not named in the suit. However, Aaron Halone, head of Sledgehammer Studios, addressed the lawsuit at the start of a recent media preview for the game, calling news of its allegations "devastating."
From there, the "Vanguard" briefing reverted to a more generic script as the developers spelled out details from the latest game and features they believed would appeal to gamers.
Highlights from the preview revolve around some of the game's details, rather than based on a WW2-inspired plot. (The good guys fight the Nazis.) The standout moment from the preview came when the developers showed off gameplay footage showing how the objects and set pieces of "Vanguard's" maps would react when shooting began. In one scene, bullets from the back of a bookcase knocked volumes off shelves and tore their pages to pieces, creating a new, clear line of sight and leaving books scattered on the floor, with bullet holes in them.
With windows smashing under a hail of bullets and blasting blasts through walls, "Vanguard" will present a dynamic that most battle simulation fans have really only found in EA's Battlefield series, where walls or buildings build up to tanks or rockets. fall under fire from hand grenades. . The game will feature a revamped version of the game engine first introduced with 2019's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare." Players will then be able to mount their weapons on objects, for example a table or box, and will now be able to slide them over flat surfaces while maintaining cover.
Also new to "Vanguard" will be a multiplayer mode called Champion Hill, pitting eight teams against each other in a round-robin-style tournament. The mode can be played with singles, duets and trios, and will take place in "a field with four maps". The developers, who promised additional details on the mode in the coming weeks, described it as a mix between Battle Royale and the 2v2 gunfight mode introduced with 2019's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare." Gunfight will also be included as a mod for "Vanguard", as will the franchise's popular Zombies mode, which will be managed by Treyarch, another Activision-owned developer, and last year's game "Call of Duty". : Black" will build on the lore. Ops Cold War. "
Players will be able to customize their loadouts using the game's Gunsmith feature, which will introduce "custom ballistics" for weapons.
Sledgehammer touted a total of 20 maps (including four 2v2 maps) to be playable at the game's launch.
Like "Black Ops Cold War", "Vanguard" will also link to Call of Duty's battle royale game, "Warzone". Most notably, the "Vanguard Key" release this year will introduce a new map for "Warzone" from the developers of Raven Software, as well as anti-cheat software to help deter hackers who are making "Warzone" a lot. have already suffered. It's been 17 months since it was launched.
This is the second time Sledgehammer has worked on a "Call of Duty" game set during World War II. The studio's 2017 entry, aptly titled "Call of Duty: World War II", followed the tests of an American unit as it moved from Normandy, France to Germany. "Vanguard" will follow a multinational squad of extraordinary soldiers from the Allies in multiple battles. The soldiers would join the world's first special forces unit and pursue information about "Project Phoenix", the Nazis' plan to re-establish the Third Reich after it became clear that Germany would lose the war.
The squad will include a British paratrooper, a hotshot American pilot from the Pacific Theatre, an Australian tanker who fought in North Africa and a Russian sniper who helped save Stalingrad. All the characters are loosely based on actual soldiers of war, Sledgehammer's developers said, noting that they didn't feel they were "watched" for history. You probably won't find mention of this entity's adventures in the Ken Burns documentary.
A new Call of Duty game has been released every fall for the past 16 years. The previous two releases, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" and "Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War," were both best-selling games in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Activision Blizzard has reaped massive financial rewards from its free-to-play battle royale release, "Call of Duty: Warzone," and free-to-play mobile game, "Call of Duty: Mobile." According to the publisher, the former topped 100 million downloads earlier this year; The latter boasts of over 500 million downloads worldwide. The franchise has been instrumental in Activision Blizzard's soaring stock prices over the past year, rising from about $55 per share in mid-March of 2020 to a peak of about $104 in February of 2021.
But it all happened when the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed its lawsuit. Now, "Vanguard's" performance could serve as an indicator of whether the behavior outlined in the lawsuit will change consumer behavior: the annual reflection of buying the latest Call of Duty title.
"Any kind of harassment goes against everything we stand for," Halon said at the media briefing.