Bozo Beat — Call of Duty: Vanguard Beta First Impressions

Well, it’s almost that time of year again; the new Call of Duty: Vanguard is slated to release in November, with the open beta just having ended last week. As I said in my Black Ops Cold War review, it’s really tiring having to keep up with this series’ annual release schedule. Even though I really enjoyed that game, it doesn’t make me any less skeptical of these yearly releases. This is mainly due to the fact that I’m still really comfortable with Cold War and I’m not really bothered to move on to another COD game. While I think it’s really important to keep an open mind when reviewing games, I found that really hard to do in this instance; that’s a failure on my part as I had pretty much made up my mind on Vanguard before even playing the beta. I’m not going to lie and say that this mindset didn’t affect my opinion of the game even after I had played the beta. Hopefully this contextualizes what will seem like an overly negative and nitpicky review/first impression. Most importantly, a lot of what I’m discussing is most likely going to change when Vanguard releases in November, so none of this should be taken as a final verdict.

Presentation

Vanguard’s visuals are… fine. Honestly, that’s all I really have to say about the game’s graphics. Fidelity-wise, I was a bit disappointed; the game doesn’t really come across as next gen, and the graphics are comparable to the last few COD games. That being said, I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with the visuals either. Vanguard’s overall aesthetic is just kind of bland.

One thing that really agitated me during my time with the Vanguard beta was the game’s Heads Up Display. While the HUD isn’t bad by any means, there are several minor issues that make the game needlessly less enjoyable. For example, Vanguard doesn’t have a health bar. While this is fairly standard for COD games, I thought the health bar in Cold War was a really great addition to the HUD. However, this loss wouldn’t be nearly as much of a grievance if the signature “bloody screen” effect wasn’t so weak in this game. I always found it really hard to gauge just how much health I had while playing Vanguard; the absence of the health bar and the toned down “bloody screen” would lead me to believe I had a lot more health than I actually did. Speaking of toned down HUD elements, the grenade indicator is really misleading in this game. Typically, grenade indicators should grab the player’s attention with flashy animations whenever a live grenade is near. However, Vanguard’s grenade indicator is really hard to notice and when it does catch my eye, I’m way too close to the grenade to run away in time.

Gunplay

The best thing I can say about Vanguard is that the guns feel fantastic. This has nothing to do with the actual stats of the guns, but rather their audio designs and animations. I can’t tell for sure, but I feel as if the gunfire sounds a lot more punchy than in previous games. That, in addition to what feels like an exaggerated recoil animation gives all of the guns in Vanguard an extra “oomph” that makes them really satisfying to just shoot. Not to mention, the gore and dismemberment animations are way more prevalent in this game than previous titles, making select guns feel that much more powerful.

Maps

As with most COD games, the maps available in the Vanguard beta range from pretty good to really bad. My favorite map by far was Hotel Royal, which encompasses the rooftop, terrace, and bar of, well, a hotel. Aside from being a well designed map with interconnected verticality and balanced spatial complexity, it just looks and feels cool. Sending bullets flying past the bar’s countertop always made me feel like I was in Inglorious Basterds. Eagle’s Nest is also a pretty good map, if not a bit too similar in basic layout to Hotel Royal but just more stripped down and in a different setting. As for the island themed Gavutu map, it really didn’t click with me. I never necessarily disliked playing on the map, but it’s where I usually felt the most bored. Lastly, Red Star was the beta’s worst map. There’s just way too much open space between the two buildings; it ends up feeling empty and even incomplete.

Game Modes

It should go without saying that the Vanguard beta featured most of the tried and true COD game modes. While Domination and Search and Destroy are all good fun, I’m glad that Vanguard has two new game modes in its roster. One of which is Patrol; it’s extremely similar to Cold War’s Hardpoint, but the capture zone is continuously moving throughout the map rather than appearing from one place to another. I really liked this game mode. It’s an interesting, but not gimmicky, twist on an existing game mode that kept me on my toes. Vanguard’s second new game mode is called Champion Hill, a “multi-arena survival tournament” according to Call of Duty. Playable in solos, duos, or trios, four separate arenas are each filled with two teams that compete in one-minute deathmatches. Between rounds, players can buy guns, perks, killstreaks and more with cash they pick up on the battlefield. Although I only played one game of Champion Hill, that one game was the most fun I had in the entirety of the beta. As Patrol is to Hardpoint, Champion Hill is a fun twist on the exhausted Battle Royale that I found really refreshing.

Balancing

As I’ve said before, a lot of what I’m talking about is probably going to change when Vanguard comes out in November and beyond. However, I still had a lot of issues with the game’s balancing across the board. My biggest gripe with the game is the overall time-to-kill, which feels way too short. I think it really throws off the pacing of the game, given that I would get obliterated by an enemy in what feels like two bullets and vice versa. The broken spawn system only ensured I would get decimated even faster. Additionally, this made me really conscious about using my killstreaks. More often than not, I wouldn’t end up using them because I’d think to myself “what’s the point if I’m just going to die in five seconds?”

Speaking of killstreaks, one thing I found really odd was the difference between Intel and the Spy Plane. Intel essentially functions the exact same as the Spy Plane, but only for the player's direct vicinity. I think this is a really nice addition since it’s a useful, low-stakes killstreak that only costs three kills. However, it’s rendered completely redundant since the Spy Plane only costs one more kill to acquire. I cannot, for the life of me, understand any reasoning behind this decision. I would’ve really liked if the Spy Plane was more of a mid-to-high-tier killstreak. Not only would it incentivize the use of Intel, but I think that it would make the game feel a bit more grounded, given that it’s a World War II shooter. This, of course, isn’t to say that I want COD to be more realistic, but I think that such a choice would give players a bit more independence from the minimap, forcing them to engage with and understand the environments more; in my opinion, that would lead to more interesting gameplay.

Finally, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of some of Vanguard’s weapons. First off, the KAR98K is kind of broken. In all honesty, I didn’t get to unlock it during the beta, so all my criticisms of the gun are based off of other players. Regardless, even though the gun is a long-range sniper rifle, I saw most players using it like a close-range shotgun. From what I could tell, this trend was incentivized through the gun’s more-than-generous fire rate. While I do like the idea of finding multiple playstyles with one gun, it feels wrong here given that the KAR98K seemed to completely supplant the game’s actual shotgun, the Revolving Shotgun; it functions in a similar fashion to Cold War’s Streetsweeper, but worse. So much worse. The semi-automatic shotgun gun would only net me two kills at most before having to enter an agonizingly long reload sequence that I almost never saw the end of before getting riddled with bullets. Lastly, I absolutely hate Vanguard’s throwable Thermite. Not only does this lethal equipment burn so brightly to the point of practically blinding everyone, but it also deals an insane amount of damage while slowing down those who come into contact with it. I’m sure you can understand my frustration when seeing these obscenely powerful throwables being spammed all over the place during a game.

Verdict

If you couldn’t tell already, I didn’t particularly enjoy my time with Vanguard. While it doesn't seem like a bad game by any means, it just didn’t do enough to make me care; nothing about it elicited any strong reactions from me. More often than not, I just felt bored while playing Vanguard. Again, none of this is to say that it’s downright bad as there are certain things I like about the game. However, this beta didn’t nearly sell me on Vanguard, and I can’t see myself picking it up at launch, especially not at full price.

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Oct 5 Call of Duty: Vanguard Beta First Impressions