With Vanguard, Activision’s Call of Duty franchise is returning to the Second World War for the first time since 2017’s WWII. We already had a chance to take in the new single-player story lead developer Sledgehammer Games plans to tell, but we’ve only seen a few glimpses of the title’s multiplayer offering outside of its Champion Hill mode. That changed on Tuesday when the studio broadcast a nearly 30-minute multiplayer deep dive and shared a new trailer.
Vanguard looks to attract new players to the series with a feature called Combat Pacing that allows you to decide how hectic you want matches to play out. Three filters — Tactical, Assualt and Blitz — determine the number of players in a match. Tactical, for instance, limits things to a 12-person match, while in Blitz there can be as many as 24 players on each team.
Vanguard also introduces a new game mode called Patrol. It’s a fresh take on Domination that sees a capture zone slowly move across the map. It’s joined by classics like Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination and Search and Destroy. Returning from previous Call of Duty titles is Gunsmith. It’s a feature that allows you to customize your weapons with various accessories.
If you want to see more of Call of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer before the game comes out on November 5th, the game’s multiplayer beta starts later this week. Provided you pre-ordered Vanguard on PlayStation, you can see what’s new before anyone else. The beta will open up to all PlayStation users on September 16th. That same day, those who pre-ordered the game for Xbox and PC can also see what’s on offer. For everyone else, the beta opens up on September 18th and runs through to the 20th.
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