Call of Duty Vanguard revealed for November, integrates Warzone

The next title in the Call of Duty franchise has finally been revealed, but the old games aren’t done just yet.

Call of Duty Vanguard is a first-person shooter set in World War II that is being developed by Sledgehammer Games. The title will be the newest mainline entry in the Call of Duty series. Instead of replacing the previous titles, Warzone will continue to receive post-launch development alongside Vanguard. The current planned release date for Call of Duty Vanguard is November 5, 2021.

Vanguard was revealed inside of Warzone with a flashback to the fictional “Battle of Verdansk.” Players had to team up with other squads to destroy an armored train, completing several objectives along the way. The reward was a trailer for Call of Duty Vanguard. The Battle of Verdansk event is currently ongoing and is available to all Warzone players for free.

Vanguard will bring Call of Duty back to its roots with a World War II setting. The first three CoD games and several thereafter took place in WWII. The last CoD game to touch the historical period was the aptly-named Call of Duty WWII released in 2017.

The game’s single-player campaign will focus on the origin of the United States Army Special Forces, which developed during World War II. The four characters showcased so far are meant to represent the inaugural group of Green Berets. Sledgehammer Games also intends to bring back Champion Hill mode, where teams of two duel each other in a 16-player tournament. 

As for maps, Call of Duty Vanguard will launch with 20 maps on day one. 16 of them are designed for “core gameplay,” according to Sledgehammer. This could mean the return of the Special Ops game mode, where players can take on co-op missions with a friend. It could also mean that the announced zombies mode will have four maps when it is released on November 5.

The official Vanguard announcement also gave details about the game’s zombies mode. While Sledgehammer is the primary developer for the game’s campaign and multiplayer modes, the zombies portion of Call of Duty Vanguard will be developed by Treyarch. The developers of past CoD zombies modes will prioritize both gameplay improvements and lore development with Vanguard zombies.

Warzone will continue getting updates for Vanguard

In an interesting move, Sledgehammer Games will continue updating Call of Duty’s battle royale Warzone during Vanguard’s official release. Warzone remains one of the most popular battle royales in the world despite accusations of rampant cheating among the game’s players.

Warzone’s live service monetization system has made the free-to-play game one of Activision-Blizzard’s most lucrative titles. The company is reported to have made over $500 million from microtransactions alone.