Call of Duty: Vanguard Reviews
Call of Duty Vanguard's highly polished campaign provides a healthy amount of fun, even if its brief length and lack of variety lead it to fall short of the classic pieces of war cinema it's trying to emulate.
Vanguard's Zombies mode is goofy, gory, and adventurous, but it suffers from a deadly lack of content.
Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer doesn't do enough new to distinguish itself from the last few years to be a great game, but its excellent maps and Champion Hill mode mean that it's still a reliably good time.
CoD's multiplayer is as dependable as ever, but Vanguard's campaign and Zombies mode fail to capitalise on what could be interesting ideas.
Call of Duty: Vanguard will get better with time, but the launch game is still an impressive package. The Campaign is short but sweet and the Multiplayer is a blast, though Zombies fans will likely come away disappointed. Even with Zombies failing to live up to expectations, though, Call of Duty: Vanguard still has a lot to offer fans of the franchise and is very much worth the price of admission.
Vanguard won't join the pantheon of Call of Duty games, but it's a decent stop-gap for those waiting for Modern Warfare's return.
A reliable entry full of variety and worthwhile content, that simultaneously leaves an aroma of staleness that is beginning to taint the whole Call Of Duty franchise.
A solid installment for the series with a satisfying story and great multiplayer balance.
Vanguard is an overall solid pick with a lackluster campaign, a nascent but incredibly promising zombies experience, and multiplayer with a few critical new aspects.
It will feel familiar to anyone who has picked up a controller and jumped into any of the past two dozen iterations of the franchise. More importantly, though, Vanguard is a Call of Duty game because of the role it proudly plays as a mythmaking vehicle.
Tweaks in multiplayer and Zombies advance the Call of Duty franchise overall, and an emphasis on distinct characters makes Vanguard's story fun, but it doesn't always mix well with the series' gameplay.
Sledgehammer Games is no stranger to righting wrongs, as seen with its previous Call of Duty entries, but even with additional balance tweaks and new content, I’m certain five years from now that Vanguard will be looked down upon as one of the weakest games in the series.
In the long history of the CoD series, it’s fitting that Vanguard stayed true to form with the World War II setting, because when all is said and done, I think it’ll be considered among the greats. If it’s already this fun to play now, I can’t wait to see how it evolves in the coming months with any updates Sledgehammer has planned.
The stars have aligned for Call of Duty: Vanguard. For the first time, this truly feels like a full package without any caveats. Sure, some parts are naturally stronger than others but there isn't a weak link in sight. After back to back triumphs, Call of Duty is now on a killstreak.
Even failing at "showing World Wart Two like never before", Call of Duty Vanguard is a great FPS. Campaign is full of epic (and some dramatic) moments, multiplayer is fun and fast, and includes 16 maps (twice as the previous Call of Duty game) with plenty of modes and progression elements, and the new zombies mode is incredibly fun.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
For all its incredible characters and acting, Vanguard has somewhat confirmed that Call of Duty campaign modes are going in two very different directions: the stagecraft is getting better with each release, but the wider experience is going downhill.
All told, Call Of Duty: Vanguard has exceeded my expectations, especially after a less-than-promising pre-launch Alpha and press event. Then again, the Beta was drastically improved overall so I was already feeling more optimistic by launch.
While Call of Duty: Vanguard does what it does well, it’s as I wrote at the start: the expected experience. There’s nothing overly surprising here, no major shakeups to the gameplay, nothing that rejuvenates the franchise like 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, Call of Duty: Vanguard offers a solid experience for those looking for their annual fix from the franchise.
Judged on its own terms, Call of Duty: Vanguard offers a solid, albeit predictable campaign, an engaging multiplayer with deep progression systems and satisfying gunplay, and a Zombies mode that will only serve as a minor distraction in its current state.