There are many reasons that people purchase Call of Duty every year, whether it’s to stay current and keep playing with friends, or to check out the new campaign experience. For a lot of players, it is Call of Duty Zombies that keeps them coming back, at one time being a Treyarch exclusive mode, to now being a staple of Call of Duty in general. Sledgehammer revealed Call of Duty: Vanguard’s Zombies mode, detailing its collaboration with Treyarch in continuing the story from Black Ops Cold War, and taking the series into a much more supernatural direction than ever before. In the first map, Der Anfang, players move from area to area completing objectives and leveling up, a switch-up that has left many traditional, round-based Zombies players disappointed.
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The intro cinematic for Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies’ Der Anfang has been released, and it sets the stage for a haunting experience. Treyarch has already enlightened fans about the premise of Vanguard’s Zombies mode, using clips from this cinematic in previous presentations, but this is the first time the full introduction has appeared. Oberfuherer Von List near the end of WW2 and Germany’s defeat has attained five mystical artifacts from around the world that suddenly activate when Project Endstation opens the Dark Aether. With the help of Kortifex the Deathless, List creates an army of the dead to try and sieze victory, but not if the Vanguard and other Dark Aether entities have something to say about it.
Despite following Von List throughout the video, it is actually not narrated by him, but another character who was at one time associated with him. The narrator states that Von List is “the most dangerous man” that he had ever met, and he cost him his soul, though its unclear whether the narrator means metaphorically or literally due to the increased supernatural focus. Regardless, with the endless number of frozen bodies strewn throughout Europe, Von List has his undead army and can potentially enact the thousand year reich if not stopped. From the design of the zombies, due to the new story direction, Vanguard Zombies is definitely taking a risk with the mode this time around.
Reactions to this new direction have been all over the place in the run up to Vanguard’s release. Zombies has never been one for a straightforward story, nor has it shyed away from strange, supernatural elements, but in Vanguard, it seems Treyarch is really committing to these ideas. As mentioned, the lack of a traditional round-based experience will disappoint some, but there is also a lot of promise in Vanguard’s new mechanics that could hopefully shake things up.
Call of Duty: Vanguard releases November 5 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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