Call of Duty: Vanguard was just getting boring for MeinMMO editor Jürgen Horn, when suddenly the map Shipment returned to the game and changed everything! Read here why this map is simply cult.
Call of Duty Vanguard captivated me at release like no game has in a long time. The previous installments didn’t really excite me, but in Vanguard the campaign as well as the shooting and leveling in multiplayer were a lot of fun.
At least until the developers took my favorite map away from me.
This is why Vanguard suddenly got boring
I had almost exclusively farmed the chaotic little map “The House”, which was specially available in a 24/7 playlist. There I could farm kills and level my weapons late into the night in absurd blitz pacing.
Eventually, I knew every corner of the house by heart and had leveled numerous weapons and operators.
But then there was a switch in playlists and the house was only part of a random map rotation. That was unsatisfactory for me because I really just wanted to “house”.
Zombies are not an alternative!
“Oh well,” I said, “then I’ll play the zombie mode, that should be nice too.” Well, what more can I say? Except perhaps that the zombie mode feels like the developers realized in a meeting just before release that somehow no one had done anything about the zombies. Then they quickly tacked a crude game mode without any real goals or surprises into the game.
After what felt like 2 hours of dull gameplay, in which I had wiped out three different types of zombies in three different missions in large numbers, I found it really stupid and tried something completely different the next evening.
No CoD is also not a solution!
Since the early access to Battlefield 2042 recently started, I tried this game instead. But compared to my first rounds in BF, even the terribly boring zombie matches were more exciting.
Somehow I got lost on the absurdly large maps and when I did encounter enemies, they were usually in greater numbers or well barricaded and I was killed numerous times by campers. And even if I had the upper hand, annoying rubber banding effects and other glitches quickly drained the fun away.
Maybe Battlefield 2042 is fun in teams or after a while of adjustment. But the lengthy battles on huge maps are really not for me. I want fast action where one wild fight follows another and you are back in the middle of the chaos right after respawn.
And that is still best provided by CoD, even without a reliable stay in the house. So I started CoD just before midnight, maybe I would get lucky and the house would be randomly in the rotation.
The first map where I felt like a real warrior!
And then I saw it! Where the “The House” playlist had been before, now stood Shipment 24/7! Shipment! That’s not just a trigger word for me, because this legendary map has been a hit among CoD fans since 2007.
For me, it has a particularly special meaning. Because in 2007 I played my first CoD with Modern Warfare. After I had completed the grand campaign, I played the multiplayer mode, but I quickly became a victim on most maps and my opponents farmed me like a field of potatoes.
Except on Shipment. I wasn’t exactly a top player there either, but on the small, compact map where enemies could suddenly appear from any side, I had enough opportunities to get a few kills.
I even earned my first killstreak here in my life and was incredibly proud of myself. On Shipment, I earned my stripes, so to speak, and for the first time felt like a real warrior and not just a farm potato victim!
The fascination of Shipment: It’s glorious chaos!
With trembling fingers and shining eyes, I clicked on the Shipment playlist and it was even crazier than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. I was thrown into a wild team deathmatch round that was already in full swing.
I hardly even had time to study the Vanguard version of the map because something was always exploding, somewhere something was always burning, bullets were flying around me and in all that chaos, numerous wild attack dogs were running around, tearing everything and everyone apart.
I had hardly spawned when a killstreak bomb fell on my head and the next spawn was eaten by a dog. Shortly after, I managed to wipe out three careless people with the MG42, only to be shot in the back by enemy number 4.
The longer the round went on, the more absurd it became and at some point players spawned randomly in the hail of bullets and at least one dog turned into a wildly twitching texture tornado out of sheer joy.
All of this was so wild, so chaotic, and so wonderfully ridiculous that I immediately started another round. And then another, and another, and another. The good old Shipment feeling was back. Only thanks to blitz combat pacing, it was literally turned up to 11 and wilder than ever before.
I just love it and can’t wait for the evening when my son is in bed, because then I’ll return to Shipment, where explosions, bullets flying, and wild dogs are already waiting for me.
If you’re also excited for straightforward action and Shipment chaos, then get ready! Because right now you can download Vanguard for free and play in multiplayer. And yes, that includes Shipment! And to make the fun factor completely turned up to 11, the developers have created a special playlist that consists only of Shipment and The House and also offers double experience points during the free weekend. See you in the chaos zone!
