The multiplayer reveal for Call of Duty: Vanguard dropped earlier this week and fans have had mixed feelings about it. 

One of the more controversial things about the games reveal is the WWII theme. This will be the third game in the Call of Duty series with this theme, which fans aren’t too happy about.

Fans have been asking for different themes in the series, one major suggestion being a Revolutionary War theme. This would’ve been a great idea, giving Activision a chance to take a more historical twist on the campaign. With the series already including World at War and WWII, another game themed the same just seems unnecessary.

Another thing about this game that has fans a bit uneasy is the developers involved. The main developer is Sledgehammer Games, the company who developed the poorly received Call of Duty: WWII. Giving Sledgehammer another chance with a game that will most likely be very similar to their previous failure is a questionable decision.

While there are some immediate things that are concerning to the community, the reveal seemed mostly promising.

One of the positive things that is getting introduced is the different combat styles for the new mode “Champion Hill”. If the player likes a slower and controlled combat experience, they can choose tactical. If they like just running in and playing aggressively, they can choose blitz. This is a great addition to the game because it allows players to choose the pace they want to play at.

Some other things about the reveal that look very promising are the new game mechanics being introduced. Two of the mechanics added are going to massively influence combat, those being mounting and blind firing. Mounting allows the player to mount their gun on a ledge for better accuracy and blind firing allows the player to fire at an enemy from behind cover. 

The other major mechanic being added is destructible environments. This makes it so when the player shoots at a building or in a room, the things they shoot at get and remain damaged, making it easier to break through windows and walls. While benefiting the player by allowing better combat and movement around the map, this also makes it so the map is completely different from how it started at the beginning of the game.

It seems like Activision is learning from their past mistakes during the development of Vanguard. One example of this is the amount of maps being released at launch. Vanguard will have 20 maps at launch compared to Cold War’s eight.

One aspect that was a major point of focus of the developers was community and multiplayer capabilities. Vanguard will be cross platform and include clans, which players can make and join with their friends. In the multiplayer launch, the developers mentioned “clan progression”. Though they didn’t specify what this feature was or how it will work, there’s a possibility that players who are in a clan could earn more XP and even possibly have clan battles.

Despite both Activision and Sledgehammer’s currently poor reputation, Vanguard looks to be very promising and expectations will clearly be very high.