2021 is something of a stop-gap year for the Call of Duty franchise; the heavy-hitting subseries like Modern Warfare and Black Ops are in hibernation, and it's up to the often-unheralded Sledgehammer games to fill the void between Treyarch's Black Ops Cold War and a presumed Infinity Ward-developed Modern Warfare sequel in 2022.
It may not have been hyped up by the community as one of Call of Duty's most exciting entries, but there's a surprising amount of depth to Vanguard's flagship multiplayer mode, allowing room for novices and pros alike to grow and adapt on the virtual battlefield.
Change In-Game Settings
While cinematic, high-fidelity graphics settings and effects elements are great in most single-player video game experiences, some of the default settings options in Call of Duty: Vanguard are downright detrimental.
To begin, the default FOV is 80, which many players will find to be suffocatingly narrow. Additionally, motion and weapon blur may help to mask things like texture streaming or screen tearing issues, but they also drastically decrease visibility. Beyond that, camera movement is set to its maximum value by default. This dictates how much the screen will shake when under fire, and it can be fantastically distracting when caught in a heated firefight.
Level Up Weapons
Weapon XP may seem somewhat superfluous, but it's arguably more vital to progression in Vanguard's multiplayer than regular XP which contributes to a player's level. Weapon XP allows players to unlock things like camos, attachments, and weapon-specific challenges that are crucial to progressing in the mode.
As was the case in 2019's Modern Warfare and 2020's Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard's gunsmith system allows players to totally transform their firearms via a suite of attachments and modifications. A well-tuned weapon can be a literal game changer, but this requires players to put in the effort to level up their weaponry. It's also worth noting that every operator favors a specific weapon, and they'll be able to level that weapon faster.
Choose A Combat Pacing
New to the Call of Duty series is the combat pacing system which allows players to choose how populated they'd prefer a multiplayer lobby to be. Vanguard players can opt for slower-paced six-against-six matches with the tactical setting or up to twenty-four-on-twenty-four massacres with the blitz setting.
Blitz will allow players to level up more quickly thanks to the faster pace of the matches, but some players find the frantic nature of this setting to be off-putting. Vanguard players may benefit from playing each of the three combat paces and deciding which best fits their playstyle.
Learn Weapon Meta
Multiplayer meta refers to the prevailing tactics and strategies adopted by the Call of Duty community, and keeping abreast of the game's current meta can help new players decipher which weapons are the most powerful and which schemes are most dominant.
That said, multiplayer meta changes with every patch introduced to the game, particularly in its early stages. Currently in Vanguard, sub-machine guns like the STG-44 and MP-40 reign supreme, and the game heavily favors a mobile run-and-gun approach. However, things are bound to change drastically in the weeks and months to come.
Equip a Bayonet
In the older Call of Duty games, melee attacks were extremely lethal; able to kill in a single hit, they were perhaps the most viable close-quarters combat weapons in many games prior to Black Ops 2. The peak of the absurd power of melee weapons came in 2009's Modern Warfare 2 which elongated the knife's range to an almost comical degree.
This has more or less returned in Call of Duty: Vanguard with the bayonet attachment. Equippable on many of the marksman rifles and SMGs, the bayonet extends a player's melee range to physics-breaking levels. It's a devastating close-range attack, and it's likely to be nerfed by Sledgehammer in the coming weeks.
Make Use of Non-lethal Killstreaks
Beginning with 2011's Modern Warfare 3—which was Sledgehammer's first outing with the Call of Duty series—killstreaks weren't necessarily dictated by consecutive kills and instead by total score. This mechanic was used in almost every CoD title up until Black Ops: Cold War. In Vanguard, however, killstreaks once again reset after death.
While it's tempting to go after some of the title's more elusive and lethal killstreaks like the flamenaut or attack dogs, they often aren't all that effective, especially in the hands of newer players. It may seem a bit demeaning, but things like spy planes and counter spy planes can be incredibly helpful, and, for many, they're much more obtainable.
Make Use of Destructible Environments
Though it comes off as a bit of a gimmick and isn't nearly as crucial to gameplay as it is in the Battlefield series, Vanguard features a few easily-destroyed environmental elements that crafty players may make use of.
Things like wooden walls, doors, and windows can be shot through to make concealed sightlines perfect for catching unaware players off-guard. Completely clearing these destructible objects can also impact the flow of a match, and, while not often key to success, they can help well-attuned players to achieve some MVP-worthy killstreaks.
Complete Challenges
Every entry in the Call of Duty series makes some attempt to innovate and differentiate itself from previous releases, and, while Vanguard does take a somewhat different approach when compared to Black Ops: Cold War, those burnt out on the series aren't necessarily going to find anything particularly refreshing.
Grinding to complete challenges may help shake up the multiplayer experience and get players out of the rut of playing their favored modes with their favored weapons. Plus, consciously working to complete challenges will allow players to level up more quickly, which, in turn, will grant them access to more new content at a more expedient rate.
Prioritize Weapon Accuracy
Weapon bloom isn't necessarily new to the Call of Duty series, but it's never been quite as prominent as it is in Vanguard. In Sledgehammer's new title, shots won't always land with one-hundred-percent accuracy, as there seems to be an element of randomness thrown into the mix to balance some of the faster-firing weapons.
Fortunately, this can be mitigated in the gunsmith tab by selecting attachments that improve accuracy. Weapons with lowered accuracy stats will be markedly less accurate, especially from distance, while guns tuned with accuracy in mind will be much more effective in medium to long-range engagements.
Master The Movement Mechanics
As was the case in 2019's Modern Warfare reboot, a greater emphasis has been placed on movement and agility. Vanguard implements things like tactical sprint, sliding, bayonet charing, and weapon mounting to make battles more dynamic and engaging, and it's a fairly deep system that definitely benefits those who take the time to learn it.
Players who've mastered things like slide canceling and bunny-hopping will excel in Vanguard, and even subtle features like weapon mounting and blind firing can offer advantages. Vanguard allows players to do far more than simply crouch and sprint, and the most skilled players know exactly how to take advantage of these new mechanics.