Call of Duty: Vanguard
Call of Duty: Vanguard is a PlayStation 5 shooter game developed by Sledgehammer Games. It centers on combat encounters, story, case, or mission progress, and weapon and firepower management, with controls and information arranged around the DualSense twin sticks, triggers, directional pad, and face buttons, with touchpad, motion input, adaptive triggers, and detailed haptics where the game uses them.
- AI score · out of 10
- 7.9 / 10
About this game
Call of Duty: Vanguard is a PlayStation 5 shooter game centered on combat encounters, story, case, or mission progress, and weapon and firepower management. Missions pace progress through enemy waves, routes, objectives, and weapon opportunities, with progress divided into stages, tasks, matches, or growth milestones that make immediate goals understandable. Its value depends on whether these rules continue to create judgment and room for mastery rather than on length, sales, or series recognition. Short campaigns are judged by repeat-challenge value, while longer ones are judged by variety, pacing, and recovery after failure. Aiming feedback, projectiles, hits, and danger zones need to remain readable, while SSD streaming, 4K and HDR output, 3D audio, performance or quality modes, and high-density interfaces need to preserve feedback and information clarity together. The genre-specific limitation is that camera turning, aiming methods, dense encounters, and peripheral support can increase control pressure. Platform conditions also include install size, SSD space, patch version, DualSense battery life, visual mode and frame rate, online dependencies, PS VR2 requirements, and cross-generation version differences affect the current release. This description covers only this platform release and does not import features or conveniences from remasters, emulators, or other console editions.
Collected in series
Call of Duty is a military first-person shooter series spanning historical battles and fictional conflicts. You move between cover, aim and fire under pressure, whether following a cinematic mission or contesting objectives against other players. Different branches add their own emphasis, including cooperative Zombies survival.
Recommended games
Related game recommendations on this platform
PlayStation 5
AI review
AI reviews are subjective assessments, not player ratings. See each review for its evidence and limitations.Published date:
Solid execution offers limited expansion of the familiar formula.
Vanguard does not substantially rewrite Call of Duty. Weapon mounting, tactical sprinting and light destruction preserve a familiar but effective firefight, while character abilities and different theatres give the campaign some local variation. Cinematic presentation supplies memorable moments more consistently than the conventional narrative. Multiplayer offers a broad initial map rotation, and Combat Pacing makes preferred match density easier to request through the menu. The weaker counterpart is the thin launch Zombies structure, alongside a general shortage of new ideas. The PS5 usability judgment here is based on that documented matchmaking control, not an invented frame-rate measurement. It best serves players who want familiar multiplayer shooting with varied locations, rather than those primarily seeking a substantial Zombies experience or a reinvention of the series.
Strengths
- Solid execution offers limited expansion of the familiar formula.
- Cinematic execution is stronger than narrative novelty.
Weaknesses
- Thin launch Zombies content
Who it is for: Players seeking varied maps within familiar multiplayer shooting
Play notes: Usability evidence is available; no unverified PS5 frame-rate claim is made.
View scoring basis
| Dimension | Review state | Score | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dimension A broad map rotation contrasts with a thin initial Zombies mode. | Reviewed | 7.5 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Solid execution offers limited expansion of the familiar formula. | Reviewed | 7.9 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Cinematic execution is stronger than narrative novelty. | Reviewed | 8.4 / 10 | Not provided |
| Dimension Match-density filtering improves usability without implying unmeasured performance. | Reviewed | 8.0 / 10 | Not provided |
Review sources
Not provided
Core information
- Developer
- Sledgehammer Games
- Publisher
- Activision
- Release date
- Nov 5, 2021
- Platforms
- PlayStation 5
- Content kind
- Game
- Release state
- Released
- Region
- Worldwide
- Official website
- Not provided
- Offline minimum players
- Not provided
- Offline maximum players
- Not provided
- Online minimum players
- Not provided
- Online maximum players
- Not provided
- Categories
- Shooter · Primary genre
- Tags
- Real-time CombatHorrorFast-pacedThird PersonStory-drivenSolo-friendlyShootingWarLinear LevelsPlayer versus EnvironmentReplayable3D Graphics
- Supported game languages
- Not provided
- Requires base game
- Not provided
- Standalone
- Not provided
- Age ratings
- Not provided
- Play modes
- Single playerCo-opMultiplayer
- Perspectives
- First person
Release editions
- PlayStation 5WorldwideNov 5, 2021
Game gallery
Sources
Not provided