Call of Duty: Vanguard is finally here, and with a full 16 multiplayer maps, a ton of weapons, and lots to grind for, multiplayer players are generally pretty happy. Fans of the campaign also have, by all accounts, a pretty fun WW2 romp to play through, even if it isn’t one of the more memorable Call of Duty campaigns. So, what’s Zombies like? In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies.
First off, Zombies in Vanguard is done by Treyarch and not Sledgehammer, and many fans were happy with this decision. Black Ops Cold War Zombies was well-liked by the community, so many were happy to see a new Zombies experience like it come to Vanguard.
Now, not every Zombies fan loved the Zombies component of Cold War. For some, Call of Duty is either simply a multiplayer experience or it's something you visit once a year for an action-packed campaign. But for other hardcore Zombies fans, Zombies in Cold War was too accessible and dumbed down.
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These people were in the minority, though, because many, many more loved how rich and deep the Zombies component of Cold War was without becoming hard to understand or something you had to look up guides for to be successful in. And still, the hardcore Zombies players still had easter eggs to do and high scores to achieve and lots to do as more and more Zombies content was added through Cold War’s life cycle.
While Cold War Zombies did have a variety of modes and things to do, the meat and potatoes of the Zombies experience were the round-based maps. Many did love the new open-world take on Zombies that came in the form of the Outbreak mode, but for most hardcore fans and casual players like, the ‘main Zombies thing’ was always the round-based experience.
This is because the longest-running, fan-favorite thing to do in Zombies is see how many rounds you can survive for while simultaneously upgrading your weapons and becoming more and more overpowered. This joy is at the heart of what makes Call of Duty Zombies beloved by fans.
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The biggest problem Cold War Zombies had was content. When the game launched, there simply wasn’t much to do in Zombies which made grinding for Zombies camos tough and made burning out quite easy to do after you had played for a while.
Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies, right now, unfortunately doesn’t have much of what made Cold War Zombies great and also suffers from the same issue Cold War Zombies had at launch, too. Vanguard’s Zombies component will likely get better in time, but depending on how it’s supported, it may never get good enough or may become good too late.
The main issue with Vanguard Zombies, at launch, is that the game was released without a round-based map or any easter eggs. What players get instead is Der Anfang, a roguelite, objective-focused new take on Zombies in the style of an Outbreak-type mode from Cold War.
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According to those who’ve got their hands on Der Anfang, it’s not a terrible new mode; in fact, many like the rougelike inspirations of Der Anfang, finding that style of risk-and-reward gameplay a good fit for Call of Duty Zombies in general, but like Cold War, the meat and potatoes of any great Zombies experience are round-based maps.
Big, new experiences that casual gamers can hop into, get the story from, and crush skulls in that hardcore Zombies fans can look for easter eggs and attempt at getting over round 100 in is what the community wants. Unfortunately, there isn’t much for the community to love in Vanguard’s Zombies mode right now.
New stuff is definitely coming, and on December 2nd, 2021, the first season of Vanguard will begin, bringing with it new Zombies content. Plus, Treyarch has said that traditional Zombies content will make its way to Vanguard, so there’s no reason to expect that Vanguard Zombies won’t eventually have a lot to offer, but for many, that may not be enough.
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The biggest criticism of Cold War was and remains to this day that the game didn’t launch with enough content, and while most agree that eventually Cold War did get tons of content enough for a full game, many were turned off by what was on offer when they picked up the game, so they never went back. Whether this will be the case for Vanguard, though, remains to be seen.
Another big reason why the lackluster launch of Vanguard Zombies stings so much is the camo grind. In Cold War, Zombies got its whole own set of camos to grind, and grinding camos thus became a cornerstone of the Zombies experience in Cold War. It was quite the grind, but with a variety of maps and modes, there was a lot to play.
Zombies in Vanguard also has camos to grind for, and if anything, the grind for camos in Vanguard only looks to take longer and be more involved than it was in Cold War, but there is a lot less to do. In fact, right now, there’s only really one thing to do in Zombies. So, grinding for Zombies camos in Vanguard, until they add more content, is going to be a major pain.
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From the outside, it can seem like Treyarch might be out of touch with fans about what they want from a Zombies component in Call of Duty, but there’s more to the story than that. As a whole other experience in a whole other game, there would be a significant outcry from fans if Vanguard Zombies was simply more Cold War Zombies set in WW2. Gamers would get bored of more of the same and feel like their hard-earned cash bought them glorified DLC instead of a new game.
So, Treyarch has to introduce new stuff and make Vanguard Zombies feel distinct and unique without straying too far from the core Zombies formula and giving gamers what they actually want from Zombies. This puts the developer somewhere between a rock and a hard place, trying to please everyone and risking pleasing no one.
Treyarch created Zombies in Call of Duty and is generally thought of as the best Zombies developer, so if anyone can thread that needle, it’s Treyarch, but we’ll have to wait and see how post-launch content is handled with Zombies to see how it all shakes out.
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