Call of Duty: Vanguard release date, WWII setting revealed

As promised, today Activision and Sledgehammer Games revealed Call of Duty: Vanguard, the next game in the long-running franchise. Today's reveal was fairly broad, with Activision and Sledgehammer revealing the various game modes for Vanguard while holding off on announcing most of the specifics for now. The two companies also confirmed the release date for Call of Duty: Vanguard, which has become a common announcement for these reveal events.

We know that Vanguard's campaign will feature four different playable characters from different Allied countries. These characters will form Task Force One over the course of the campaign and serve as the origin of Special Forces, with Activision saying that the story will span "four major theaters of World War II in a unified single-player narrative." With Vanguard, it seems Call of Duty is going back to its World War II roots.

Then there's the multiplayer mode, which will feature 20 different maps at launch. 16 of these maps will be "built for core gameplay." Details are still fairly slim on multiplayer, but a blog post on the Call of Duty website notes that it will feature "an advanced Gunsmith and Caliber system that brings immersive and reactive environments to a new level." We're also told to expect the next generation of Champion Hill in Vanguard, but unfortunately, those are all the details we're getting about multiplayer for today.

Activision and Sledgehammer also announced today that Vanguard will have a Zombies mode thanks to help from the folks at Treyarch. Unfortunately, there were next to no details revealed about Vanguard's Zombies mode today, but we're told to "expect a detailed preview of Call of Duty: Vanguard Zombies as All Hallows Eve approaches."

Finally, we received confirmation that Vanguard will integrate with Warzone, which is getting a new anti-cheat system as well. Vanguard will land in Warzone with a brand new map that will launch later this year, and that's when full integration between the two games will be complete. Of course, all of the cosmetics earned so far will be carried over to the new version of Warzone, and players will be able to play any of the four integrated games (Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard, or Warzone) to progress their ranks and battle passes.

Aside from Warzone integration, Vanguard will also include cross-play and cross-progression. Cross-play will include all platforms, including last-gen and current-gen consoles, and that's always nice to hear. Vanguard will be launching on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on November 5th, 2021. We'll have more details about Vanguard for you when Activision reveals them, so stay tuned for more.