The Battle Royale Warzone and Call of Duty: Vanguard merge with the start of Season 1 on December 2nd. Warzone receives the Vanguard graphics and a lot of content through the latest CoD release. But should you buy the full-priced title if you only play Warzone? MeinMMO provides you with decision-making assistance.
Call of Duty: Warzone expands in early December. On December 2nd, there will be a new map, fresh graphics, and the anti-cheat system “RICOCHET”. All these innovations are connected to CoD: Vanguard, which has been on the market since November 5th.
With Vanguard, you have certain advantages for Warzone, but is it worth buying the new CoD if you only play Warzone? We will list the advantages for you and how Warzone benefits from Vanguard, even if you do not own the new CoD. Then we will draw a conclusion on who it might be worth it for.
What does Warzone bring with Vanguard?
One thing in advance: When it comes to gameplay-relevant content, you will not have any disadvantages. All the content that will come into the game over the next months via live seasons is available to you in full and free of charge. However, there are a few advantages that you can secure for Warzone with the new CoD:
- Leveling weapons
- Training battles
- One day earlier Caldera
- Operator
- Exclusive cosmetic bundles
- Zombie camos
Leveling weapons: You can already level the almost 40 new weapons from Warzone in Vanguard. However, it is currently considered very exhausting to progress with the weapon leveling. It remains to be seen whether this will go faster in Warzone after the release of the Pacific update. So far, however, multiplayer has been regarded as the best method to level up Warzone weapons. Plunder works fairly well too.
Training battles: In the Battle Royale, you do not have continuous fights like in multiplayer and especially newcomers should train as much as possible with the weapon. If you want to improve in Warzone or are brand new to the CoD universe, then multiplayer CoD Vanguard is better suited for battle training.
Early Access to Caldera: You can still exploit a mini-advantage with gameplay content: All owners of Vanguard can play the new Warzone map Caldera on December 2nd. For non-buyers, the new Warzone will only be online from December 3rd, 24 hours later.
Operator: You can only use the base operators if you unlock them in Vanguard. With the new CoD, you can also level the characters and you receive cosmetics for the operators. How limited you are with the operator skins is not yet fully clarified. However, if it goes as it did last year with Cold War, the operators will not be available to you.
As an example with Cold War: If you did not buy the game and activated the seasonal combat pack with an operator skin, you could not use that skin.
Zombie camos: For many generations, you could earn skins for certain weapons in CoD through weapon challenges, so-called “camos”. The challenges are usually tailored to multiplayer and add color to the weapon game.
With Cold War, the zombie mode received its own zombie camo collection and Vanguard also has these camos again. Without the zombie mode, you cannot unlock the camos for Warzone.
Cosmetic bundles: This point is rather negligible. However, there are a few cosmetic bundles in Cold War and Modern Warfare that you can only purchase through the shop in multiplayer. Included is a very dark skin that can give you advantages in the dark.
All info about the switch to Vanguard on December 2nd can be found here:
What does Warzone bring without Vanguard?
It can be described like this: If you play Warzone without Vanguard, you have everything necessary for a complete gaming experience. Vanguard gives you the extra on top. But even without the new CoD, you fully benefit from the gameplay innovations and later, free expansions:
- Live seasons & battle pass
- 40 new weapons
- New map Caldera
- Fresh game modes & events
- Anti-cheat “RICOCHET”
- The new graphics
Live seasons & battle pass: Vanguard starts its first live season on December 2nd and takes Warzone along with it. Instead of starting at Season 7, Warzone goes back to Season 1 and the two CoDs then go together until Season 6. Warzone content and the battle pass of a new season are fully available to you in the battle royale.
New weapons: As soon as you can play the Pacific update of Warzone, the almost 40 new weapons will be in the game. There are even already 2 new weapons through the battle pass.
Pacific island Caldera: The new map comes for all Warzone players and the old map Verdansk will temporarily disappear completely. By the way, Rebirth Island also remains part of Warzone.
Game modes & events: Through the seasons and playlist updates, variations of the normal “Battle Royale” mode will come into the game from time to time, and large team deathmatches in Warzone style and live events will also be available again. All of this is also available without Vanguard.
At launch, for example, a “Vanguard Royale” is announced, in which only Vanguard weapons are allowed and you can try out the new planes and anti-air trucks.
Anti-cheat “RICOCHET”: With this new system, CoD improves its security infrastructure for Vanguard and Warzone. So you benefit from the measures, even without Vanguard. The anti-cheat driver, which is part of “RICOCHET”, actually comes first to Warzone. You can find more info about it here:
New graphics: Warzone is merging with Vanguard and is receiving significantly more from the new CoD than from its predecessor Cold War. Because the battle royale completely adopts Vanguard’s graphics engine and thus becomes, while not a new game, a different game. However, here too, you do not need Vanguard to play the “new” Warzone.
Movement, graphics, equipment – all details are not yet clarified, but the gameplay foundation is changing radically and so far it is still not clear how your loadouts will look at the end of the year. You can find a thought game about it here:
Do I need Vanguard for Warzone?
Vanguard gives you several advantages in Warzone, but do you need the paid CoD for the battle royale: No, absolutely not.
If you are a fan of the multiplayer, then the battle royale Warzone is an extremely strong extension of the CoD experience. It offers you a completely different application of the same techniques you know from the multiplayer mode and thus a thrilling option for all players of Vanguard.
However, if you are more of a friend of the battle royale, then Vanguard is practically a nice addition – for which you still have to pay full price to be able to just jump in. All important content is also coming to Warzone without the new CoD.
Vanguard also offers an action-packed campaign and a co-op mode with loads of zombies. If you are excited about these contents as well, Vanguard is definitely worth considering and the multiplayer has also become strong this year.
However, if you primarily only play Battle Royale Warzone in PvP mode, then Vanguard is probably not worth it for you. The multiplayer mode is the core of Vanguard and if you cannot say for sure that you will play it extensively, save your money or spend it on new cosmetics as soon as the Pacific update goes live.
What you can expect from the multiplayer mode can be found here: Why every CoD fan should try Vanguard, even if they don’t like the setting
