PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

It’s a problem that Vanguard fails to

resolve, which is a shame because

there are hints of more interesting

ideas amid the game’s familiar sights

and sounds. But in the end Vanguard

submits to expectation. There are

certain things a Call of Duty game

must be, and

Sledgehammer ticks

those boxes in

dependable but

unadventurous fashion.

The campaign is

most indicative of the

gulf between

Vanguard’s ideas and

execution. The story

revolves around a group of special

forces agents plucked from different

theatres of the war, who are

dispatched on a secret mission to

Berlin in the final days of the Reich.

The action commences with a raid on

a German train while fires from the

Russian advance rage in the distance.

This rolls seamlessly into an assault

on a submarine dock, where the

group learns about a secret Nazi

operation known as Project Phoenix.

OPSY DAISY

It’s an interesting setup for a WWII

shooter. The prospect of following

this group of renegades through

infernal Berlin is tantalising, and I

was keen to see what tale

Sledgehammer would spin in this

relatively unexplored area of the war.

But this isn’t what happens.

Immediately after the raid, your

group of agents are captured by the

Nazis, and spend most of the

remaining campaign imprisoned

beneath some gloomy Nazi

administration building. While our

heroes sit around sucking their teeth,

the campaign hops between

flashbacks that individually focus on

each member of the team’s

experiences during the war.

In other words, what initially

seems like a different

take on the Second

World War turns out to

be just another playable

highlight reel of the

conflict. Admittedly,

Sledgehammer tries to

put twists on the more

familiar encounters.

The obligatory D-Day

mission involves parachuting into

treacherous Normandy woodland

before assaulting a clifftop bunker

from behind to facilitate the D-Day

landings, while the Pacific themed

Numa Numa Trail sees you join

forces with an all-black American

unit, dodging Japanese deathtraps

and snipers in preparation for a

spectacular assault on an airfield. The

highlight of the campaign is

Stalingrad Summer, which gives you

a taste of life in WWII’s lynchpin city

prior to the Nazi assault, before all

hell breaks loose in the campaign’s

standout action sequence.

Not all the missions are so well

thought out. The later missions set in

north Africa are spectacular, and lent

a sense of fun by your team of cocky

Australian saboteurs. But ultimately

it’s a derivative drive through the

desert. The biggest letdown is the

Battle of Midway, where breath-

taking scenes of aerial combat are

undermined by Call of Duty’s refusal

to cede control of the flightstick,

constantly pushing you toward the

next objective rather than giving you

a chance to enjoy the fighting.

TEAM PLAYERS

The campaign’s broader issue,

though, is it offers little opportunity

to experience your spec-ops team as

a (^) team. It’s a shame because, for once,
the characters are a likeable bunch.
The writing may be heavily splashed
with patriotic pathos, and the fact the
game uses quotes from its own
characters for the death-screens is
painfully pretentious. But the general
rapport of the squad is engaging,
while characters like Lucas the
Australian saboteur, and Polina the
Russian sniper, are given enough
depth to make you care about them.
Sadly, there are only two missions
in which the squad actually work
together. The rest of the time, they’re
incarcerated in a prison cell, while
Dominic Monaghan’s creepy Nazi
administrator tries his best to conceal
Vanguard’s almost complete lack of
plot. The cutscenes are long and
meandering, and it all leads up to an
underwhelming final mission.
As the campaign struggles to make
the best of its ideas, multiplayer is
more progressive, bringing a couple
of broad changes and more bespoke
new features that make a small but
noticeable difference from previous
years. Foremost among the new
additions are more destructable

O

nce again, Call of Duty spins its wheel of war, and for the

sixth time in the series’ history, the needle has landed on

‘World War the Second’. Call of Duty has always been

most comfortable booting Hitler right in the

Panzerschrecks, nestled cosily in the history of the

victors, safe in the knowledge that the baddies really were bad. But it’s

also the most difficult setting from which to build something new.

There are only so many World War II battles, after all, and Call of Duty

has covered them exhaustively over the years.

DUTY STALLS

Despite some impressive moments, CALL OF DUTY: VANGUARD struggles to stand out

By Rick Lane

Sledgehammer

tries to put

twists on the

more familiar

encounters

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

Activision’s annual

cash-cow,this time

with a World War II

theme.

EXPECT TO PAY

£50

DEVELOPER

Sledgehammer Games

PUBLISHER

Activision

REVIEWED ON

AMD Ryzen 5 3600,

Nvidia GeForce RTX

2080 Super, 32 GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER

Yes

LINK

callofduty.com

WAR NEVER CHANGES

My rating of the CoD WWII campaigns

Call of Duty

Call of Duty: United Offensive

Call of Duty 2

Call of Duty 3 (not on PC)

Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: WWII

Call of Duty: Vanguard

Call of Duty: Vanguard

REVIEW