Editor’s Note: A lawsuit has been filed against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which alleges the company has engaged in abuse, discrimination, and retaliation against its female employees. Activision Blizzard has denied the allegations. The full details of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit (content warning: rape, suicide, abuse, harassment) are being updated as new information becomes available.
The first gameplay footage from the campaign of Call of Duty: Vanguard was shown at Gamescom 2021, revealing the game's single-player World War II chaos. Aside from the alpha, this is the first real look at Call of Duty: Vanguard so far, allowing fans a significant look at some of the gameplay innovations Sledgehammer has come up with over the last few years.
Players will have their first opportunity to go hands-on with Call of Duty: Vanguard on August 27 via a free alpha exclusive to PlayStation players. The alpha will feature a new mode called Champions Hill which builds off of the mechanics of Gunfight, a mode introduced in Modern Warfare. Similarly, multiple beta weekends will be held for Call of Duty: Vanguard in September, giving players more time to get a feel for how the game plays and determine if it was really a good idea to go back to World War 2 once again.
That said, fans won't get to really try the campaign until the game releases in November. Thankfully, Sledgehammer Games debuted the first look at the campaign for Call of Duty: Vanguard during Gamescom Opening Night Live. Given Call of Duty: Vanguard returns to WW2, fans will be fighting almost all parts of the global battle. The campaign will feature four playable protagonists across four fronts around the world with each character seemingly specializing in things like sniping and piloting. This should give a lot of variety to the campaign and allow for some unique missions throughout the story.
Sledgehammer is meant to be shaking up the gameplay quite a bit with this entry. The game will feature destructible and reactive environments, a first for the series, and allow for more strategies in combat. Not only will players be able to create new sightlines and paths, but players will also be able to blind fire from cover. Despite reportedly getting a shorter development time, Call of Duty: Vanguard seems massive in terms of the amount of content and work that has been done to evolve the series.
Given some fans may be apprehensive to return to WW2 after the incredible success of Modern Warfare, Sledgehammer doing things to shake-up the formula and make gameplay feel fresh could be what it needs to win reluctant fans. Still, there's been attempts to do things like this in the franchise's past and it hasn't always gone well. Whether or not Vanguard can do this in a satisfactory way remains to be seen, but the footage that's been released so far looks promising.
Call of Duty: Vanguard releases on November 5, 2021 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC.