Welcome to Vanguard Season 1.5

Welcome, friends, to a new year. We’re happy to report that our Season 1.5 Update has some resolutions we’re eager to share with you. This update is due to go live today at 4 PM PT.

You may have noticed some intel from our social channels last week teasing the upcoming changes to Vanguard Multiplayer. Along with new seasonal content in today's update, you can expect to see some significant changes to gameplay and bug fixes. We’ve nerfed Incendiary Grenades and updated Perks to give you new ways to counter fire damage (sorry for the excessive burns). Alongside this, we completed a weapon balancing pass that buffs Sniper Rifles and fixed a few Camo Progression bugs that should allow you to unlock Atomic. Also, we've adjusted some of those crazy Control spawns and remedied a few issues resulting in packet burst.

We've heard your feedback on the issues you’ve been facing since Vanguard’s launch and we want you to know that we are committed to improving the state of Vanguard Multiplayer. Bluntly speaking, not every fix in today’s update will be a perfect fix. Some issues, especially with spawns and packet burst, might take us some time to thoroughly address. But we want you to know we hear you, we’re working on those things (and more) and you can expect more updates coming to Vanguard before Season 2.

Today’s update doesn’t only include seasonal content and changes to MP. It also includes a Zombies update from our partners at Treyarch. Read up on the top changes here, or you can get the full Zombies treatment over at the Treyarch blog.

For more information about seasonal content updates, check out the official Call of Duty blog.
 

Multiplayer Updates

Stability

• Several sources of packet burst have been identified and resolved
• Several sources of Multiplayer crash errors have been identified and resolved
• Xbox Series X players will no longer experience game crashing with CDN setting enabled
• Playing with keyboard and mouse will no longer result in ‘controller needed’ message 

Spawns

• Spawn logic has been tuned to improve small maps with higher player counts
• Adjusted spawn logic for Domination on Dome
• Spawns in Control mode have been significantly adjusted to:
  • Prevent out-of-map spawns on Tuscan
  • Prevent spawning in the enemy’s line-of-sight on Bocage
  • Prevent players from spawning directly on teammates

Weapons & Equipment: Bug Fixes

• Attack / Guard Dog kills now count towards Panzerfaust Camo Challenges
• STG "Reptilian" Camo Weapon Challenge is now tracking Bloodthirsty kills
• STG "Predatory" Camo Weapon Challenge is now tracking Multikills
• Katana unlock Challenge is now tracking properly 
• Addressed an issue that prevented the "Kill an Enemy While They Have a Spy Plane Active 5 Times" challenge from tracking in the Counter Measures career challenges
• Player selected camos will now appear during the match intro sequence
• Locked Camos and attachments can no longer be swapped onto unlocked weapons
• A bug resulting in missing Post-Match Flow has been fixed
• A bug resulting in Type 100 Blueprint “Thunderhead” being invisible in the pre-match countdown has been fixed

Weapons & Equipment: Balancing Changes

• Weapons
  • M1 Garand
    • Reduced Recoil
  • Type 99
    • Reduced Aim Flinch
    • Reduced ADS Time
    • Retain One Shot Kill potential for chest shots when smaller caliber ammo is used 
  • 3-Line Rifle 
    • Reduced ADS Time
  • Kar98
    • Retain One Shot Kill potential for chest shots when smaller caliber ammo is used
• Ammo
  • Bolt-Action Hollow Points
    • Removed damage range penalties
• Equipment
  • Stun Grenade 
    • Reduced Stun Grenade damage in Hardcore modes
    • Reduced how long players are affected by Stun Grenades
  • Incendiary Grenade 
    • Damage has been reduced
• Killstreaks
  • Mortar Barrage
    • Duration of Mortar Strike has been reduced
    • Number of Mortar Strikes per streak has been reduced
    • Addressed issue where Mortar Barrage deployment was inconsistent
• Perks
  • High Alert  
    • Slight delay added before Perk activates after being seen by an enemy
  • Dauntless
    • Gives immunity to fire and burning effects including Incendiary Rounds, Flamenaut, and lingering fire on the ground
  • Fortified
    • Reduces fire damage taken by 30%
    • Reduces excessive damage of all explosives

Maps

• Polish pass to improve and fix player collision issues with map environments 
• Overall polish pass on Destructibles throughout all maps

UI/UX 

• "Seasonal Challenge" menu is now present in the Challenges tab
• Players will no longer experience visual rank swapping between players in Private Matches
• The Objective progression bar will no longer clips into reticles
• Unintended distortion of MVP images has been fixed
• The continuous post-game level-up animation when players reach Prestige 3 has been fixed
• Store: menu navigation has improved when viewing and toggling between Bundles

Zombies Content Update

In Zombies, classic survival gameplay arrives in “Shi No Numa” this week with the new Void Objective for players who want to kill endless waves of zombies, watch the rounds go up, and grind weapon camos to their heart’s content. Explore Von List’s Office, a previously unavailable area that harbors narrative secrets and a mysterious new portal. Upgrade your Artifacts at the Tome of Rituals, equip three new Pack-a-Punch camos, build the Warmachine and Deathmachine at the Crafting Table, discover new narrative intel, and more.

The Combat Shield also joins loadouts and the Mystery Box, and new weapon unlock challenges for the Katana and Welgun SMG are coming to Zombies. Get the full overview of everything included in this week’s update over at the Treyarch blog.

Survival Gameplay

• Void
  • Survival gameplay comes to “Shi No Numa” in the Void, accessed from Von List’s Office in Stalingrad.
  • Rounds are advanced by defeating increasingly difficult endless waves of zombies, rather than by completing Objectives.
  • After completing 3 rounds in the Void, players must choose to Flee or Survive. Choosing Survive continues to spawn waves of zombies until players choose to escape, or if the game ends when all players go down.
  • Players earn 5,000 bonus Essence for every 3 rounds completed in the Void.
  • After surviving 12 rounds in the Void, players earn a reward that prevents Perks from dropping below Tier II upon going down for the rest of the match.
  • The Pack-a-Punch machine is available in “Shi No Numa” when in the Void.
  • Players can return to Stalingrad to upgrade their Perks, Covenants, and Artifacts after surviving 3 rounds in the Void, and can return to the Void at any time.

Locations

• Von List’s Office
  • Explore this previously closed-off area of Stalingrad to discover new narrative intel and the portal to the Void.

New Feature

• Tome of Rituals
  • Invest Sacrificial Hearts at the new Tome of Rituals to upgrade Artifacts up to four tiers in-game.

Artifact Upgrades

• Frost Blast
  • Tier I – Freezes normal and Special enemies for 3 seconds once they have been in the Frost Blast zone for 0.5 second.
  • Tier II – Increases the Frost Blast radius by 100%.
  • Tier III – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 3.
  • Tier IV – Frozen normal enemies are insta-killed when damaged.
• Energy Mine
  • Tier I – Stuns normal and Special enemies hit by Energy Mine for 3 seconds.
  • Tier II – Explodes 3 times in a row with a 0.75 second delay between explosions.
  • Tier III – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 3.
  • Tier IV – Increases the explosion radius by 66%.
• Aether Shroud
  • Tier I – Automatically reload weapons when activated.
  • Tier II – Deal 500% bonus melee damage while active.
  • Tier III – Gain 50% move speed while active. Duration extended from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Tier IV – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 2.
• Ring of Fire
  • Tier I – Normal enemies inside the ring take damage equal to 2% of their max HP every second.
  • Tier II – Players within the ring use ammo from stock.
  • Tier III – Staying within the ring for up to 10 seconds increases the duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Tier IV – Staying within the ring for up to 10 seconds increases your damage bonus from +50% to +75%.

Pack-a-Punch Camos

• Three unique camos added to the Pack-a-Punch machine.
• Weapon camo will now change in appearance with each Pack-a-Punch upgrade up to Tier III.
•  Pre-Packed loot weapons will display Pack-a-Punch camos after being picked up from Sturmkreigers or the Mystery Box.

Weapons

• Combat Shield
  • Now available in Zombies loadouts and the Mystery Box.
  • Mitigates a portion of damage from the direction the player is facing when raised. Cannot break.
  • Protects the player’s back from partial rear damage when stowed.

Weapon Unlock Challenges

• New weapon unlock challenges added to Zombies for the Katana melee weapon and new Welgun SMG via Create-a-Class:
  • Katana: In Zombies, get 5 rapid kills with a Melee weapon during 50 different Portal Objectives.
  • Welgun: In Zombies, get 5 rapid Critical Kills with an SMG during 50 different Portal Objectives.

Support Weapons

• Warmachine and Deathmachine now available in the Support tab at the Crafting Table.
   

See you online!

As always, we’ll continue to collect feedback from all the corners we can find it. Have constructive feedback? Please let us know your thoughts!

• Twitter
• Reddit
• Instagram
• Facebook

You can also report a bug or leave feedback about Call of Duty: Vanguard in this survey.

Best of luck out there!

Sledgehammer Games