Call of Duty: Vanguard launches on November 5th, 2021, which is right around the corner. However, Vanguard has already gone through an alpha and a beta, both of which developer Sledgehammer Games has said will help them tune and tweak the full release of the game. Sledgehammer has now listed out all the major changes coming to Vanguard’s full release based on community feedback. In this article, we’ll explain what all of the biggest changes coming to Vanguard actually are and let you know what you can expect from the full release.
First and foremost, Sledgehammer dropped full patch notes for the changes coming to Vanguard in the full release. So, if you’d like to scroll through and read everything yourself, check out Sledgehammer’s blog post. In this article, we’ll go over the biggest and most important changes, but we won’t talk about every single one. It’s also important to recognize that many more changes will come to Vanguard after launch as Sledgehammer continues listening to the community.
The single biggest issue in Vanguard’s alpha and beta was the game’s audio. Positional audio didn’t work well making it incredibly difficult to know where somebody was based on them firing a weapon near you and footsteps were nearly impossible to hear, but that was just the beginning of the game’s sound issues.
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Modern Warfare 2019, which runs the same engine as Vanguard, was beloved in part due to its phenomenal sound design. Many did not like how loud footsteps were so that camping and passive play was encouraged, but guns sounded powerful and incredible. Shooting somebody was immediately satisfying in no small part because of how punchy the guns sounded.
Vanguard’s audio, in the alpha and the beta, was extremely muffled in general. Even at max volume, many gamers with headsets couldn’t get the sound loud enough to hear as much as they would like. Big picture, nothing sounded anywhere near as punchy and powerful as sounds in Modern Warfare were.
Unsurprisingly, Vanguard’s audio in the full release is getting a “complete mixing and content overhaul to address community feedback” according to Sledgehammer. This overhaul is going to impact sound in the game in general as well as gunfire and footstep audio. We don’t yet know how this sounds, though, so if you’re on the fence about playing Vanguard because of the audio, it’ll likely make the most sense to wait to see gameplay.
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Footstep audio ties into another huge change widely cried out for by the community that is, in fact, coming to Vanguard’s full release: the Ninja Perk. One of the biggest criticisms of Modern Warfare 2019 was that Dead Silence was a field upgrade, meaning that you could only be truly silent in short bursts once your field upgrade was charged.
When you combine this with extremely loud footsteps that could be easily tracked, camping and passive play were strongly encouraged because it was simply much easier to wait and listen for enemies than it was to try to aggressively push or flank and be caught by enemies waiting and listening for you.
Vanguard has Dead Silence as a field upgrade, but in the alpha and beta, there was no dedicated Perk that made footsteps silent like there is in almost every other Call of Duty. That’s no longer the case, because Sledgehammer has replaced the Low Profile Perk with Ninja, a perk that makes footsteps completely silent all the time.
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Plus, Ninja is in the Perk 1 slot, which is a competitive slot that has other fan-favorite Perks like Flak Jacket and Ghost, so Ninja won’t be a crutch Perk that’s the obvious choice for every map and mode, unless Sledgehammer’s audio rebalancing makes footsteps far too loud on their own. This makes an aggressive playstyle a lot more viable because people won’t always be able to hear you coming.
Visibility was another major concern in Vanguard during its alpha and beta. When firing, guns produced too much smoke, a certain blur was applied when aiming down sights, muzzle flash was overbearing, and maps in general could oftentimes be hazy or filled with weather effects that made actually seeing targets hard to do. This all added up to a frustrating experience where your recoil control and tracking were rewarded less than simply being able to see enemies.
This is all changing in Vanguard’s full release. Aim-down-sight blur is gone; smoke when firing has been reduced; muzzle flash has been adjusted; weather effects like rain have been toned down, and in general, VFX in the game in multiplayer will be less distracting. This makes for much more satisfying gunfights, because you won’t have to worry about being able to see who you're firing at. Plus, when the game launches, Sledgehammer has promised to keep monitoring feedback on visibility, so things might even improve further.
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The last major issue of the Vanguard alpha and beta was one of weapon balance. With 10 attachments available on every gun, certain attachments felt unfair and unbalanced, while some classes of weapons felt extremely dominant, like SMGs with the MP40. Many changes are coming to Vanguard’s full release when it comes to weapon balance.
Shotguns, which were laughably weak in the alpha and beta, have become much more lethal in exchange for less effective damage range, while SMGs and pistols, both of which were too good at range in the alpha and beta, have seen their effective damage ranges nerfed as well.
Hipfire spread across most guns in the game has also been adjusted for parity across weapon categories, and many different attachments, particularly ammo types, barrels, magazines, and stocks have been adjusted and rebalanced as well. Naturally, weapon balance will continue to evolve throughout Vanguard’s life cycle, but these changes come in response to community criticisms of the alpha and beta.
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