Multiplayer Impressions from ‘Call Of Duty: Vanguard’ - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Last week I spent a little over two hours playing several Call Of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer maps coming up with other members of the press and influencers / streamers / pros some of which were good, much better than me, although I think I stuck it out at times.

We played several different modes on four different maps which I will detail below. First off, let’s talk about the modes, the shooter, and the overall feel of the upcoming WW2 shooter from Sledgehammer Games. Since I didn’t have access to all 16 MP maps or all modes and couldn’t try out all of the different weapons, these prints are obviously limited.

Gameplay, modes and rhythm of combat

Sledgehammer and Activision made us play several different modes. Some you probably know like Domination (capture and hold three points) and Kill Confirmed (TDM with dog-tags you need to collect). The only new mode we played was Patrol, which is basically Hardpoint, but the point is constantly moving around the map on what is essentially an invisible track.

Patrol mode is a fun new twist that I really enjoyed. You can never crouch down and defend a fixed point because it’s always on the move, so it’s a much more active game mode than Hardpoint. Enemies can come at you from all sides and you can get the upper hand over defenders. Everything is very chaotic.

I played these modes in 6v6 and in big team mode. Avant-garde has a slightly confusing new “battle pacing” system that is really just a fancy way of figuring out how much team size you want on a given map. Combat Pacing goes something like this:

• Tactical - Classic 6v6 player experience
• Aggression - Balanced combat pace that gives you plenty of room to breathe and plenty of targets to kill. In the multiplayer beta, the number of players will vary between 20 and 48 players
• Blitz - High action lobbies where the intensity is increased.

We played Tactical and Blitz during the demo session. Tactical is your classic 6v6 gameplay which is my preference when it comes to Call of Duty games (unless we’re talking about special modes like Gunfight or War Mode which I like even more).

6v6 works well enough on small maps, but at least one during the demo session (Red Star) was too big for such a small number of players. Later we played it in Blitz mode and it felt too chaotic. Maybe “Assault” will be perfect. We will see.

Gunplay felt pretty decent. The game is built on the same engine as Modern war So there are a lot of similarities with things like double sprinting and the way the game feels in general. Maybe it’s a little faster and a little less grounded—Modern war has awkward realism which is basically the opposite of from the cold war fast-paced arcade style. I would say Avant-garde falls somewhere in the middle.

The weapons, of course, are quite different. These are all WWII themed guns, although the basics still apply. You have your sniper rifles, your high-speed shotgun, your SMGs and assault rifles, and the M1 Garand as your tactical rifle (at least it’s the only one I remember seeing during the demo). The M1 Garand is a classic rifle but I haven’t used it much, mainly sticking to assault rifles and devoting an entire match to sniping.

The other novelty of multiplayer is destructible walls. These are very obvious as they are basically just planks instead of real walls. You can shoot them, drag them, or smash them to pieces, opening up new routes or taking down enemies who mistakenly think they’re in cover. This is basically the bare minimum when it comes to destructible environments and I think it adds very little to the game and can actually be somewhat distracting, but not as bad as in Champion Hill mode where spawn kills were a result. direct.

Overall I had fun with the online multiplayer session but still am not convinced by the overall experience. It’s partly because I’m used to Black Ops Cold War at this point and nothing in Avant-garde felt as good or as natural, including the cards. So let’s see these next.

The cards

One thing I will say for the four cards that we got to play during our sessions is that they were all very different from each other. This contrasts with Champion Hill mode, where the maps were very similar, especially in terms of the color scheme which was all brown and gray and army green. These cards made it very difficult to see enemy players. During the parliamentary session, it was not really a problem.

EYRIE

Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s famous alpine base, was the smallest of the four maps we played. It is composed of a complex and essentially of three tracks. The left lane runs alongside the enclosure with a wooden walkway or a more open exterior corridor that goes through windows and walkways leading inside. The right lane is a long outside lane perfect for pulling on either side.

However, most of the action takes place indoors. There is a series of medium sized rooms to walk through, with numerous exits and entrances on either side. It’s a pretty chaotic map as most of the fights are close quarters. I’ll say I didn’t like the flow on this one but I didn’t hate it either.

GAVUTU

Gavutu is a small island map of the South Pacific. It has lots of winding paths, a long open center lane perfect for sniper combat, and several resorts to explore. On a Domination map, points A and C are both on the beach while Bravo is inside the larger complex. Here a tank on a platform moves up and down from the roof to the interior where the tip is, which is an interesting ride.

I really liked this card. It’s medium to large but at least in the objective based modes I think it works pretty well even in 6v6. It was the first map we played on and we played in Patrol mode. You can watch the entire Patrol match in the video I made below:

ROYAL HOTEL

Another mid-sized map, Hotel Royal is mostly an interior map, but features lanes on both sides and a roof to fight over. Two atriums adorn the roof, and you can shatter the glass and run into unsuspecting enemies from above. Inside you’ll find plenty of shelters, bars, and lots of different rooms to hide.

It was a pretty fun card, although I admit I played it pretty poorly for some reason. Sometimes you’re on your game, sometimes you’re not.

RED STAR

By far the largest of the cards we’ve played, Red Star is a huge courtyard surrounded by tall buildings, most of which you can enter. Perches on the second or third floor provide plenty of opportunities for snipers, as do open roofs. This mode can work in 6v6 but only with Objective modes. In TDM, it will look way too empty. I also played the Blitz with something like 24 players on each team. It was . . . to say the least chaotic. Aesthetically I liked this map, but it’s awfully large for a Call of Duty map.

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Graphics, Killstreaks, etc.

Graphically, Avant-garde it looks good but it’s nothing impressive. Modern war had a somewhat colorless palette but it worked in its own way, evoking a realism that gave the game a distinct feel. Black Ops Cold War completely abandoned realism in favor of bright colors and various locations. This made it easier to spot enemies and added to the more arcade experience of the game. I didn’t like him so much at first, but he grew on me and now I prefer him to Modern war dull presentation.

Avant-garde, again, falls somewhere in between. It’s not as dull as Modern war but it’s not as colorful as Cold War.

Speaking of Cold War, Treyarch did some cool stuff with this game that are scrapped Avant-garde, including much larger control points in modes like Dom and Control and Hardpoint. I really liked these changes, but we’re coming back to much smaller points here.

I’m also a little disappointed that Killstreaks is back instead of Scorestreaks. Killstreaks penalize objective-based play and reward kills. Players like me who throw themselves at the goal every time die too much to get many Killstreaks. The only time I had all of mine in one game was when I ignored Dom points and played as a sniper. It’s a strange incentive. Since Killstreaks is reset to death, you’re just fucked up. I prefer from the cold war algorithm, which rewards for staying alive but does not reset a death sequence. Here are the Killstreaks we know:

• Intel: 3 eliminations (personal radar)
• Spy plane: 4 killed
• Counter-spy plane: 4 eliminations
• Glider Bomb: 5 kills
• Heal Pack: 5 kills
• Strafe Run: 6 kills
• Dogs: 10 killed

The minimap is the same as Modern warfare, meaning it won’t reveal players as red dots on the map when firing with unremoved weapons. There is a Radar perk that re-enables this feature, but of course that takes away other useful perks. I’m not sure why we’re going back to this system that just takes away vital information from players, but I suspect it’s to level the playing field a bit, crippling the top players in favor of the casuals.

Verdict

All in all I had a great time with the avant-garde multiplayer, but I’ll have to spend a lot more time with it to really get a full idea of ​​what to expect from this game. The shooter is pretty cool and you have a wide variety of guns to choose from. Since Gunsmith is back, you will be able to customize to your liking with a large number of attachment combinations to choose from.

With a few beta weekends ahead, we’ll have plenty of time to dig deep into the game, try out more weapons, and really get a feel for the game. the avant-garde game loop. I am cautiously optimistic, but certainly not sold.

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