We got our first glimpse of the campaign of Call of Duty: Vanguard at the Gamescom Opening Night Live event, namely of the chapter set in Stalingrad. The main character, Polina Petrova, will be one of the game’s multiple player characters, as it follows her attempts to survive in the city and rescue her family. While we didn’t see the entire chapter, we did get a glimpse of what the gameplay will look like.
The new chapter was revealed by Geoff Keighley after a brief interview with Sledgehammer Games’ Dave Swenson and Laura Bailey, who plays Polina in the game. As Bailey pointed out, Polina is based on a number of Russian women that served in World War II, such as Lyudmila Pavlichenko, one of the deadliest snipers in history. She’s one of four main characters who will appear in the campaign, the others being Australian Private Lucas Riggs, British Sergeant Arthur Kingsley, and American Lieutenant Wade Jackson.
The gameplay showed Polina partaking of stealth gameplay, as she creeps around the city after it’s attacked and melee attacks various enemies. She also takes out several Nazis the old-fashioned way, with a variety of games including a sniper rifle and a shotgun. It also appears she’ll be able to climb to otherwise-inaccessible areas to use as sniper nests.
Swenson referred to the game as a “totally new take” on World War II, which he says is usually portrayed in games via huge battles. Says Swenson: “Some of the most interesting people that we discovered in our research were those men and women who were part of the original Special Forces teams. Call of Duty: Vanguard will tell their story, tell the story of the birth of Special Forces.” Polina will be one of those characters, part of Task Force One, and will presumably also be playable in the multiplayer modes.
