Call of Duty: Vanguard and the Battle Royale Warzone are in crisis. Both shooters are plagued by many bugs and issues, causing even the 2nd joint season to be delayed. MeinMMO author Maik Schneider shows you what is currently going on with the shooter series.
This is the situation:
- The two current CoD shooters for console and PC – CoD: Vanguard and Warzone – are plagued by major issues
- This has now even gone so far that the season 2 is postponed by 2 weeks
- What do the problems look like and how will it continue with CoD?
CoD on console and PC in crisis – What’s going on?
For MeinMMO, I have been accompanying Call of Duty since the launch of Modern Warfare in late 2019. The title revived the dusty shooter series, which had been considered a problem franchise by publisher Activision after the rather weak Black Ops 4 from 2018.
CoD MW 2019 and the free Battle Royale Warzone then made for a spectacular comeback of the biggest shooter series in the world. Additionally, CoD: Mobile also started very successfully, but we want to focus here on the console and PC titles.
However, with the two current titles – Warzone and Vanguard – things are going awry. Players are massively complaining about bugs in both games, criticizing the lack of weapon balance or issues with the gameplay challenges, which are an important part of the long-term motivation.
Therefore, I want to take a closer look at what is currently going wrong with CoD, how the developers are responding, and what I think about the current situation.
CoD Warzone: Crashes and invisible skins
What’s going wrong with Warzone? The currently very negative mood surrounding the free Battle Royale is a development of the past months. The old map “Verdansk” ran smoothly, the weapons had a good balance. But cheaters plagued the free-to-play shooter.
With the announcement of “RICOCHET”, the mood rose. The expectations for the new anti-cheat system were gigantic. Many players understood the announcement to mean that there would be no cheaters on PC after implementation. However, that didn’t happen.
Because the kernel driver of RICOCHET is not a ban tool that automatically kicks all cheaters out of the game. It is another analysis tool that helps detect cheaters.
When the tool went online worldwide, a week after the release of the new map Caldera, a certain disillusionment set in. There are still cheaters and since the expectations were so high, it led to a wave of disappointment.
Furthermore, the problems on the new map:
- Some players find the new map too spacious
- The performance on consoles is problematic
- Frequent crashes on PlayStation and Xbox
- Graphics bugs, broken textures, the old demon weapon glitch
- Invisible skins run across the map – even normal players can thus “cheat” without expecting a penalty
- The Christmas event annoyed many
Sometimes there were no textures. 
Sometimes there were too many textures.
One swapped an old but well-functioning Warzone map for a broken island paradise. Together with the disappointment over the anti-cheat program, this has led to a bad mood in the community.
CoD has now pulled the emergency brake and postponed the 2nd season by a few weeks.
CoD Vanguard: Lack of balance and zombie disappointment
What’s going wrong with Vanguard? The latest premium CoD was already under a bad sign at the announcement. The setting in World War II was generally received worse than in the last two CoD adventures.
Sales also fell significantly below those of its predecessor Cold War. And Cold War had already sold worse than its predecessor Modern Warfare 2019.
There was no big hype around Vanguard. And then the problems in the game came on top of that.
My squad was particularly plagued by connection issues in the team lobby. I read then that it’s supposed to help if none of us goes to the gunsmith during matchmaking. That has been forbidden for us to this day.
If you manage to get into the match, you are confronted with OP weapons. For almost every weapon class, there is an option that can further reduce the already low time-to-kill.
In addition, there are strong killstreaks like “Flamethrower” and “Dog Squad”, for which there are no reasonable counters. For the flamethrower suit Flamethrower, there is now a solution. But if someone sets their dogs on you, you can almost certainly expect a few deaths.
At least the new fire grenades have been nerfed by now.
Moreover, the systems for long-term motivation were partly broken. Until recently, it was not possible to unlock the “Atomic” skins – the highest reward for weapon skins for completing many challenges.
On top of that comes the zombie mode.
Call of Duty has tried something new here. Instead of a survival map with a large story Easter egg, there was an area that apparently grows with each season.
This way, the potential unfolds only slowly and perhaps the zombie adventure at the end of Vanguard’s life cycle will be a fantastic co-op experience. However, currently, the current zombie mode is just a shadow of itself.
Vanguard generally runs a bit smoother than Warzone. However, the current CoD will also benefit from the postponement of season 2.
Conclusion: 2 weeks of extra time are a good start
It is difficult to assess how much time it will take to resolve the mentioned issues in the two games. But one thing is certain: CoD is in the worst state it has been in for years.
On one hand, the mood is at rock bottom, on the other hand, there are many problems in the games. Added to that are the sales of Vanguard, which are partly far behind the numbers of its predecessors (via videogamechronicle.com).
There were sessions where I was more annoyed about the problems in the game than I was enjoying my kills. That hasn’t happened in a long time and it’s frustrating.
If there are OP weapons, I use them too. If there are connection issues, I’m more patient. If there are cheaters in the match, I start a new round. But having everything at once is too much even for me. And usually I’m quite lenient about that.
The additional 2 weeks to fix the shooters are a good start. It remains to be seen to what extent the developers can solve the problems in that time.
In a letter from the developers to the community, the responsible parties assure that they feel our frustration and are working hard to get the issues under control. And I keep my fingers crossed that it works.
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