Vanguard: The Road to Season One

by Sledgehammer Games

Season One is coming in hot and today we have some intel to break down regarding new content, and all the changes we’ve made heading into the official launch of Vanguard Season One on December 8th.

But first, we’d like to thank our players for all the support our team has received since Vanguard launched. Your feedback has played a critical part in helping our developers improve features, squash bugs, and prepare Vanguard for Season One. This week players can expect a few long-awaited fixes and features such as the ability to save custom mods in Gunsmith and changes to the Bloodthirsty Challenge with the 3-Line Rifle. We're excited to join you all on two new Pacific maps, Radar and Paradise, as well as the return of a fan-favorite mode, Control.

For more detailed information about Vanguard’s Season One content offerings, check out the Call of Duty big blog that breaks down Vanguard Season One content including Battle Pass details, new weapons, new Operators, new maps, and more.

This blog is just a taste of what's to come in Season One.

What’s New In Vanguard: Season One

New Map, Radar

New Map, Paradise

Day 1

New Maps

Paradise: Medium-sized three-lane-style map featuring an underground tunnel and a hazardous weapons testing site.
Radar: A reimagined version of Modern Warfare 3’s Dome.

New Perks

Serpentine: Slightly reduce incoming ballistic and explosive damage while Sprinting.
Intuition: Players are alerted of the presence of nearby enemies, even through walls.

New Lethal Equipment

Incendiary Grenades: Large radius grenade that deals damage to any within its range.

Week 2

New Mode: Control

Take turns defending and attacking two Control points with limited respawns. Defenders must prevent attackers from capturing their zones. If a team runs out of respawns or fails to complete their objective in the allotted time, they lose the round.

New Zombies Content

Season One delivers new content, features, weapons, challenges, and unlockable rewards to Vanguard Zombies, with more on the way mid-season. At launch, you’ll take on the all-new Purge Objective, wield 14 powerful upgrades across five new Covenants, bring in new Season One weapons and Launchers via your Loadouts, and find an expanded arsenal in the Mystery Box.

New Zombies Career Challenges with unique rewards are also being added to the Barracks on December 8th, along with 20 new Season One Challenges offering their own exclusive Calling Cards and XP bonuses. Complete the full set and earn the Season One Master Calling Card and a mountain of XP.

Later in the season, more Zombies content and new features are coming to Vanguard. Players will explore Von List’s Office to continue the Dark Aether story, upgrade their Artifacts with the new Tome of Rituals, build devastating Support Killstreaks at the Crafting Table, take on weapon unlock challenges to expand their Loadouts, and more. Stay tuned throughout the season for more info on what’s coming!

New Objective

Purge: Capture the Control Runes to eradicate the Augmentors from existence.

New Covenants

Equip five new abilities with 14 total upgrades across all rarity tiers at the Altar of Covenants.

New Weapons

Wield new Season One weapons and bring Launchers into the fight via your Loadouts and the Mystery Box.

New Career Challenges

Take on a new set of Zombies Career Challenges to unlock exclusive Calling Card rewards and bonus XP.

Season One Challenges & Rewards

Complete the full set of Season Challenges to earn a unique Calling Card and XP rewards, including the Season One Master Calling Card.

Multiplayer Updates

Note: To maintain stability, the weapon balancing changes that were planned for Dec 9th have been moved to a later date. For the latest patch notes, click here.

Gameplay

Did an overall pass on Mounting. Players reported issues regarding mount height and objects not appearing mountable.

Weapons

Gunsmith
- Custom Mods: players can save custom builds.
- Adjusted the camera position when selecting specific weapons or attachments. Players reported the weapon preview was cut off for a handful of attachments.
In-Game
- Bug, where players would load into the game with an invisible weapon, has been fixed.
- Combat Shields now correctly display skins while stowed.
Progression and Camos
- XP
  - XP rates have been increased for Snipers.
- 3-Line Rifle
  - Bloodthirsty Challenges have been changed to Prone Challenges.

Killstreaks

Mortar Barrage - (Dec 9)
- Improves visibility by reducing full-screen smoke effects. As a result, players need to be closer to the barrage to be affected.
Flamenaut
- Added damage direction indicators for players using Flamenaut.
Fire Bombing Run
- Fixed issue where players did not see where the fire VFX started, resulting in players taking damage though they were not standing in the flames.
Attack Dogs
- Fixed a missing VFX path when the whistling animation plays.
UI
- Performance pass on Killstreak decals to reduce flickering.

Field Upgrades

Dead Drop
- Fixed a bug where players were continually awarded their top killstreak when using Dead Drop.
- Charge time has been doubled.
Goliath
- Made it easier to determine if a deployed Goliath is friendly

Challenges

Fixed an issue with “Grizzled Veteran - Get X Eliminations in Hardcore Mode” not tracking properly.

Progression

Fixed bug preventing some players from unlocking reticles.

Maps

Demyansk
- Fixed an exploit where players could exit the map.
Oasis:
- Fixed exploits where players could exit the map.
Tuscan
- Fixed a rare issue where players spawn outside of the map.
Numa Numa
- Fixed a rare issue where players spawn outside of the map.
Shipment (Dec 9)
- Adjusted spawn logic to prevent spawn traps

Clan

UI/UX
- Fixed a bug where player names were blank in “incoming clan requests” if the request was received while in the Clan Request menu.

Menus

Players will see a warning when equipping 2XP tokens while a global 2XP event is running.

Performance & Connectivity

Improved stability when connecting to lobbies.
Fixed bug resulting in “Server Snapshot Error,” where players would get kicked out of matches and into MP menus. (Dec 9)

Campaign Updates

Stalingrad
- Fixed bug where the game would crash when Polina picked up an NPC.
Battle of Berlin
- Fixed a bug that would cause the game to crash after a cutscene.

Zombies Updates

New Objective

Purge
- Purge the Augmentors from existence by capturing powerful Control Runes throughout the area.
- Augmentors will spawn waves of enemies as a defense mechanism as players attempt to capture the Control Runes.
- Survive the enemy waves and successfully capture all Control Runes within the time limit for a perfect Objective completion and bonus rewards (Max Ammo, Max Armor, and Bonus Points power-ups).
- Fail to capture all Control Runes before the time limit expires, and a huge horde of zombies will spawn that must be taken down to complete the Objective with standard rewards.

New Covenants

Wield five new Covenants with 14 total rarity tiers at the Altar of Covenants.

Brimstone
- Deal damage to nearby enemies (Rare/Epic/Legendary).
Deadshot
- Aiming down sights snaps the crosshairs to headshot location on enemies. Bonus damage on the first critical attack for each enemy. Removes weapon sway (Rare/Epic).
Dead Wire
- Stuns an enemy (Rare/Epic). Stuns an enemy and nearby enemies (Legendary).
Scrapper
- Gain more Salvage from pickups (Rare/Epic). Gain more Salvage from pickups and Objective rewards (Legendary).
Swift Vengeance
- Deal more damage the faster you move. Activates shortly after you start moving. Fire while sprinting (Rare/Epic). Activates immediately upon moving (Legendary).

New Weapons

Season One Weapons
- Once unlocked, players can bring in the all-new Cooper Carbine, Gorenko Anti-Tank Rifle, and Sawtooth Melee weapon in their Zombies loadouts at the start of Season One.
Launchers
- All Launchers will now be available in loadouts and in the Mystery Box in Zombies at the start of Season One.

Career Challenges

Added new Zombies Career Challenges to the Barracks with unique Calling Card and XP bonus rewards.

Season Challenges

Added 20 Zombies Season Challenges to the Barracks with unique Calling Card and XP bonus rewards to earn, including a Season One Master Calling Card for completing all 20 challenges.

Progression

Addressed an issue which prevented players from unlocking the Dark Aether Completionist camo.

Pack-a-Punch

Addressed an issue that prevented Pack-a-Punched Shotguns with 10 Round Drums from reloading all 10 rounds in a single reload animation.
Addressed an issue that could incorrectly flag un-upgraded weapons as Pack-a-Punch Level 1.

Gameplay

Closed various exploits including out-of-map exploits.

Stability

Fixed a stability issue related to the Frost Blast Artifact.
Fixed a stability issue related to multi-kills obtained via Equipment.

Get Up To Speed!

For a full recap of everything coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard Season One, check out the resources below from the Call of Duty Blog team so you’re ready to jump in on December 8th.

Everything You Need to Know About Call of Duty®: Vanguard Season One

Call of Duty: Vanguard Bootcamp - Weapons and Loadouts

Call of Duty: Vanguard Bootcamp - The First 10 Hours

Call of Duty: Vanguard: Clans, Progression, and more

See You Online!

Have constructive feedback? Please let us know your thoughts by tagging @SHGames on Twitter, @sledgehammergames everywhere else, going to r/CODVanguard on Reddit, or using #Vanguard on hashtag-friendly platforms. You can also report a bug or leave feedback about Call of Duty: Vanguard in this survey.

Best of luck in the Pacific!

Sledgehammer Games & Treyarch