X-ECO: Call of Duty Vanguard - Review at War

This week marked Call of Duty's return to World War II, with Vanguard. Vanguard had received less hype than generally expected for a brand-new COD title, arguably due to a lackluster beta plagued with a litany of potentially game-breaking issues - from hectic spawns, muddled audio, visual bugs, and overall poor visibility.

The team at Sledgehammer games had their work cut out for them if they wanted to put out a serviceable game for a fanbase that was desperately looking for a change, especially after the mixed reception received by the last major Call of Duty released by Treyarch.

Did Sledgehammer listen to the community and fix the problems with the beta? Overall, I believe that Sledgehammer has succeeded in making meaningful changes for the better since then. Whilst it is by no means a perfect game and still has a way to go, the positives outweigh the negatives; with a few tweaks it could even be one of the best CODs in recent history.

While playing, I took some notes about the positives and the negatives of Vanguard.

Positives

• The overall look of the game: Running on an upgraded version of Modern Warfare 2019's game engine, Vanguard looks gorgeous. The maps find a good balance between size and detail. The color schemes vary from map to map. From the vibrant and colorful Castle to the dark and dreary Gavutu, there's a good variety of environments to experience.
  

• Gunplay: While the balance of the guns is something that we will address later, overall gunplay feels solid. Recoil isn't overly strong and is quite easy to control, making you feel like an expert marksman while you're beaming enemies from across the map.
  

• Combat Pacing: A new feature coming to COD is combat pacing, which is great for the entire range of players from the casual all the way up to the corner jumping, G-Fuel chugging COD pro prospect. If you don't want to sweat through the seat of your gaming chair, then Tactical pacing is the traditional 6v6 that you're looking for. Assault is the second option striking a good balance between the slower-paced Tactical and... Blitz pacing. There is no other way to describe Blitz pacing as anything other than fast-paced insanity. Constant action on large maps with zero pauses in the action will leave your head spinning.
  

• Operators: There are actually a few positives for this one. A cool feature is the short cutscenes giving a short backstory of each operator. Operators now have their own leveling system much like weapons do. Completing certain milestones with that operator will help you progress more quickly to unlock different skins, while using an operator's favorite weapon will help you level that operator and the weapon more quickly, which is a pretty cool mechanic. Operator leveling and challenges add another layer of grinding to the game for the completionist looking to unlock every possible item in the game. Speaking of grinding to unlock things...
  

• Weapon camos: From standard challenges like headshots, longshots, and multi-kills to 100 kills while moving with certain attachments, Sledgehammer has really set the camo challenges up for serious grinders. This won't be easy or straightforward for the majority of players, but the gold, diamond, and atomic camos are well worth the grind if that's your cup of tea.

Don't think that it's all positive. Vanguard is not without some serious faults.

Negatives

• Audio: There's no good way to put this: the game audio is a disaster. The directional and footstep audio is only slightly better than it was in the beta (and that's not saying much.) Between constant grenade explosions, glide bombs and bomb runs, the audio is a jumbled mess. There have been countless times where I was standing next to a teammate firing at an enemy only for us to be flanked and shot by another enemy that ran right up next to us, but we were unable to hear them. Even if you do get lucky enough to have a moment without explosions, you still won't hear the enemy because they're using the newly implemented Ninja perk making them virtually undetectable. The audio is so bad that I have resorted to using the High Alert perk just so I can get some indication that an enemy is around me.
  

• Spawns: While there has been a slight improvement in the spawn mechanics since the beta, the improvements simply aren't enough. Spawns flip very quickly with little to no logic behind them. You will spawn, run towards the enemy side only to have the enemy spawn directly behind you seconds later. There were even a few instances where I spawned in directly next to an enemy who was spawning in as well. Maybe this is by design to cut down on camping, but it often ruins the flow of the game. Overall, the spawns still need a massive overhaul if this game wants to keep its player base because this is definitely an issue that will drive people away from it.
  

• Visibility: While the game is visually striking, the overall visibility still leaves a lot to be desired. On some maps, the color palette is the same as the player characters, making enemies nearly invisible. On other maps, you're fighting to see through what I can only describe as a haze that you just can't navigate successfully.
  

• TTKs and the two gun meta: People flock to YouTube to watch JGod and True Game Data to find what guns are "meta" and what guns have the best time to kill. Vanguard takes all the guesswork out of it by giving you the two best guns (STG & MP40) right off the bat and having TTKs that rival hardcore mode in any other COD game. For the majority of the time, if your opponent shoots you first, you're dead. Due to such low TTKs, you have no opportunity to maneuver, get to safety, and then engage. You just die.
  

• Matchmaking: This one is not such a big issue, but it's an issue, nonetheless. At this point in time there is no map voting, which is strange considering how much the feature was requested for this game. Another issue with matchmaking is that the lobbies disband after every single game, so you'd better memorize the names of the good random teammates that you run into.
  

• SBMM: I know, I know. This topic has been talked about enough, but skill-based matchmaking in Vanguard is on steroids. You no longer have a few game grace periods to stomp some noobs like the second coming of Scump before getting thrown in with people of your own caliber. Now it's almost immediate and you can definitely tell. If you want to play, do well and win, prepare to sweat.

Overall, I am very optimistic about what this game can become if the negatives are addressed. With ranked mode on the way, we will have a mode that rewards all of the efforts that Vanguard requires of us. Sledgehammer has already said that they are keeping an eye on weapon tuning, leading me to believe that they have a finger on the pulse of the COD community right now and that they are listening. Honestly, what more could you ask for from a game developer? Am I completely off with my assessment? Is there something that you would change about the game? Let us know in the comments.

.