There were some big expectations placed upon CoD Vanguard when it was released back in November last year, as is the case for every new Call of Duty game. The problem was that CoD Vanguard was just okay; there was nothing ground-breaking about it, just more of the same except newer. We at Gameranx even spoke about the game’s unpopularity when looking at a poll at the time of its release.
Activision Blizzard feels like the game just didn’t have enough star power to make it interesting or engaging. In the company’s recently released 2021 annual report, the company said that Vanguard didn’t meet expectations because of its own execution of the game. The report says, “The game’s World War 2 setting didn’t resonate with some of our community, and we didn’t deliver as much innovation in the premium game as we would have liked.” The report carries on by saying, “We are certainly addressing both of these issues with the 2022 launch. Our return to the Modern Warfare setting – which was our most successful title ever – has over 3,000 people working on it, and it will be our most ambitious plan yet.”
We brought you the news that a (sort of) new Modern Warfare title would be getting released this year, and with Infinity Ward’s assistance, Activision Blizzard hopes that this will steer them back in the right direction, and reviews and sales will hopefully reciprocate that.
Call of Duty has been struggling over the last few years, and even though Warzone’s reviews were better than Vanguard’s (just), the franchise has struggled to hit the lofty heights it once had in the golden days. It does seem clear that Activision is focusing most of the blame on CoD Vanguard and the tired setting of WW2 as well. Vanguard did struggle with a lot of bugs, bad decisions, delays with DLC, and geographical confusion up to and after its release, which has coincided with reports of workplace misconduct allegations that have definitely soured the company’s name and its titles as well.
