Call of Duty Vanguard campaign length

Call of Duty Vanguard’s campaign length will vary depending on your own personal skill and the difficulty at which you play it, but we’ll plant our flag and say it’s roughly 5-7 hours for the vast majority of people to make it from the new game prompt to seeing the credits roll. This is a fairly standard campaign length for a modern Call of Duty game, which usually lean towards being short and punchy rather than extended military campaigns (so to speak).

Actual missions in COD Vanguard are a bit longer than you’d expect though. Each one lasts generally 45 minutes (though again, this’ll depend on how difficult you find it), so they’re not really drop-in, drop-out experiences. As elaborated on in our Call of Duty Vanguard review, many of these are designed to be self-contained experiences, so while they’re arguably a little longer than the average shooter mission, they do present a whole story each time. 

However, it’s worth keeping in mind that not all of this will be gameplay. Vanguard has slightly more focus towards telling a story than recent COD games, and with this comes more robust and lengthy cutscenes that make up a bigger percentage of the experience. Players may appreciate this or not, depending on their preference – if you like storytelling and a deeper understanding of the characters you’re controlling, this may speak to you. If you can’t understand why anybody would rather watch monologues than blow things up, you may get impatient at times.

Call of Duty Vanguard mission list

COD Vanguard has nine missions specifically and no real side content to speak of, in contrast to recent COD games. Each mission is roughly the same length (as mentioned, about 45 minutes), so players shouldn’t have too much trouble estimating whereabouts they are within the story and how much longer they have to go. We’ll lay them all out in a full list below.

1. Phoenix
2. Operation Tonga
3. Stalingrad
4. The Battle of Midway
5. Numa Numa Trail
6. Lady Nightingale
7. The Rats of Tobruk
8. The Battle of El Alamein
9. The Fourth Reich

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In a tweet, the publisher confirmed that Vanguard’s first season has been pushed back a week, alongside Warzone’s upcoming new map. Both will now release on December 8, for which Vanguard players will have a “24-hour exclusive first play” to play Warzone’s new map from that date. Open access for all Warzone players is scheduled to go live on December 9.

“Vanguard owners will have 24-hour exclusive first play access to the Caldera map. Open access begins on Dec. 9,” the company explained in a tweet, which offered no further information about the reasons behind the delay.

Update: Season 1 of #Vanguard and Warzone Pacific will now release Dec. 8. Vanguard owners will have 24-hour exclusive first play access to the Caldera map. Open access begins on Dec. 9. pic.twitter.com/GnnYCp6g75November 19, 2021

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The delay follows a new report earlier this week that revealed multiple details about allegations of sexual misconduct at Activision Blizzard’s studios (opens in new tab). Following a statement from Activision Blizzard, ABetterABK – a worker’s alliance at the company – staged a walkout. The group issued a statement on Twitter, in which they also call for Bobby Kotick to be replaced as CEO.

“There’s enough to Call of Duty: Vanguard to make it one of the better recent installments – up there with Modern Warfare and better than Cold War,” we said in GamesRadar+’s Call of Duty: Vanguard review (opens in new tab). 

“The story starts slow and its smaller character-focused framing might not be for everyone but the levels themselves are all great little stories in their own right and do a good job of making you like the characters. 

“The final levels mesh everyone together in a beautifully clever way as gameplay passes you from one to the next depending on what’s needed. And, with the single-player done, the multiplayer feels like something I’ll happily settle in for a few rounds of an evening for a while to come. I’m going to need a bit of time to think about where this sits in the COD rankings but right now it’s up somewhere high for me.” 

For everything we know about the events that lead up to this new report, check out our reporting on the Activision Blizzard lawsuit (opens in new tab).

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Best STG44 loadout in Call of Duty Vanguard

Any build forces you to prioritise and penalise aspects of your weapon, but we had the most luck speccing the STG44 into a proper rifle, taking it out of its jack-of-all-trades form and building on damage, accuracy and range. There’s a little bit less SMG in its DNA now, but it’s a powerhouse at the mid-to-long range and anything in your sights is very likely to lose whatever fight you put them in.

The only downside here is that a lot of the attachments involved are high-level ones that you won’t get for a little while. Still, the STG44 is still pretty lethal without them, and you can build up to them as you go. 

Best STG44 attachments and build

• Muzzle: F8 Stabilizer
• Underbarrel: M1930 Strife Angled
• Barrel: VDD 760mm 05B
• Magazine: .30 Russian Short 30 Round Mags
• Ammo Type: Lengthened (or FMJ, both work well)
• Optic: G16 2.5x
• Rear Grip: Stippled Grip
• Stock: VDD 27 Precision
• Proficiency: Sleight of Hand
• Kit: Fully Loaded

The goal here is to build long-distance power, boosting the time to kill as high as it will go while being able to draw a bead on enemies at a distance. The downside is that it hampers the short-range and ADS speed, not to mention that the gun is now a little harder to control in terms of recoil. Still, it more than makes up for it – this is a head popper, able to effectively snap between targets and drop them with terrifying efficiency.

Best STG44 secondary weapon and loadout options

Now you’ve crafted your main killing machine, it’s worth paying attention to what’s around it. For a secondary weapon you have a lot of options, but a pistol is probably wise to cover the short-range combat until you can scavenge an SMG or shotgun off one of your kills. Try the Machine Pistol with attachments that play off fire rate, hip-fire accuracy and general spray-based tactics. 

For perks, you want to go with the generally reliable options: Ghost is a must-have, then pair it up with Radar – you want to be able to avoid up-close confrontations if you can, so combining stealth with greater awareness will help you keep fights at a healthy distance. For your third perk try Scavenger (the STG44 tends to chew ammo), or go for Overkill and put a close-range primary weapon on your back, like the MP40 or the Combat shotgun. 

For equipment, simply pick your preferred combat-orientated explosives, considering you’ll usually be in direct firefights (this is one of those elements that doesn’t matter too much and is really down to taste). Once you’ve got all that set up, you’ll have the STG44 at its full potential – and frankly, there’s not much that can compare.

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Reading through limited reports on social media, it seems the issue is tied to the PS5 version of Call of Duty: Vanguard. We here at GamesRadar were stopped by the very same problem trying to play on PS5, and we even tried deleting and reinstalling the game, to no avail. If only we’d known the actual solution is a lot less time-consuming than that.

What fixed the bug for us, and what seems to be working for most folks, is simply clearing out some storage space on your console. We deleted a single game from our PS5 library and Call of Duty: Vanguard booted up without issue. There aren’t any other known solutions out there at the moment, so if you’re having trouble getting into Vanguard, try deleting an unused game or two.

This sort of thing isn’t at all uncommon for big multiplayer games around launch, so things will probably steady out in the coming weeks. That said, if that rumored Captain America and Indiana Jones crossover is true, one can only imagine the load that’ll put on Call of Duty: Vanguard’s servers.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War developer Treyarch has also taken the lead for the Zombies experience in Call of Duty: Vanguard, and the studio laid out its undead plans in an extensive post on its official website (opens in new tab). At launch, players will be able to dive into the next chapter of the Dark Aether storyline titled “Der Anfang,” but as the post confirms, they won’t have a main quest to pursue until some time after Vanguard Season 1 launches on December 2.

Treyarch says season 1 will bring “a new Objective, additional Covenants, new weapons, Zombies Season Challenges, holiday-themed updates, and more” as soon as it arrives, and “surprise elements” set to arrive later in the season will lay the groundwork for the upcoming main quest. While this will give players new challenges to undertake and gear to show off, it sounds like it will be a while until the Zombies tale proper is ready to pick back up in Vanguard.

Still, you’ll have plenty to keep you busy as soon as season 1 launches, since that will also mark the arrival of the Warzone Pacific map and the dawn of the Warzone Pacific era. And it will all be playable for everyone, since Call of Duty: Vanguard won’t include any PlayStation-exclusive game modes.

Call of Duty Vanguard guns | Call of Duty Vanguard beta crossplay  | Call of Duty Vanguard ammo types

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Call of Duty: Vanguard pre-loading will open October 28 at 9pm PT for PS4 and PS5 players in North and South America. PlayStation players in all other parts of the world will get access at midnight local time the same night (which is technically October 29). Pre-loading will also begin at 9pm PT / 12am ET / 5am GMT on Thursday for Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S players. PC players, meanwhile, will get pre-load access on Tuesday, November 2 at an unspecified time. 

In a blog post (opens in new tab), Activision clarified that you may need to manually start your download during the pre-load period even if you purchased a digital version of Vanguard. Fortunately the game isn’t out until November 5, so you ought to have plenty of time to get the ball rolling or wait out excruciatingly slow download speeds. 

It will be a pretty decent download, too. Here’s how Call of Duty: Vanguard install and download sizes clock in for each platform:

• PS4: 93.12GB install size, 54.65GB download
• PS5: 89.84GB install size, 64.13GB download
• Xbox One: 56.6GB install size, 56.5GB download
• Xbox Series X | S: 61GB install size, 61GB download
• PC: still to be announced

Call of Duty: Vanguard eats up nearly 50% more space on PlayStation compared to Xbox, but it’s still impressively trim compared to the 190GB glutton that is Black Ops: Cold War. Activision recently promised that Vanguard’s file size would be much smaller at launch than previous Call of Duty entries, and it wasn’t kidding, though a mammoth 190GB isn’t a tough bar to clear. Interestingly, Vanguard’s Xbox footprint is also slightly smaller than early Microsoft store listings anticipated.

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The leak for Call of Duty: Vanguard is actually a compilation of a slate of unearthed details over the course of the last few weeks. You can see the extensive list of the new details on Reddit (opens in new tab), where the names of nine campaign missions have been uncovered, listing locations like Stalingrad and others.

There’s also a complete list of all the Vanguard multiplayer maps found so far. If you exclude the leaked Zombies and Champion Hill maps, there are 20 total maps listed for Vanguard, including Berlin, desert, and Casablanca-based maps, and even three supposed multiplayer maps that have been remade from World at War.

Five multiplayer game modes have leaked online for Vanguard as well. There’s Arms Race, Control, Crawl, Minefield, and Patrol, and while regular game modes like Team Deathmatch and Domination aren’t listed among the leaked modes, it’d be pretty shocking if those standard modes are absent from Vanguard come launch.

Finally, there have been six Operators leaked for Vanguard so far. There are the likes of Arabic, French, Latin, Japanese, and Hindi characters to play as in Vanguard’s multiplayer component, and each one has a unique melee weapon with which to perform brutal executions… if you can sneak up on other players.

Call of Duty: Vanguard launches later this year on November 5 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. The Call of Duty: Vanguard beta is in its final phase right now for the next few days until September 20, and pre-order customers on all platforms can now check out the game’s multiplayer mode together.

Check out our guide to all the Call of Duty: Vanguard guns revealed so far for an idea of what you’ll be fighting with later this year.

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Just yesterday on September 15, Call of Duty: Vanguard developer Sledgehammer Games announced they’d be hosting a special panel at New York Comic-Con next month on October 10. The developer also revealed that everyone attending this panel will be given a prequel comic explaining the backstory of Vanguard’s Polina, and how she joined the Special Forces.

Panelists include…💥 @SamMaggs 💥💥 @Rhodes_Writes 💥💥 @TochiTrueStory 💥💥 @BFree63 💥Attendees will get an exclusive issue of the Call of Duty: Vanguard comic highlighting Polina’s recruitment into the Special Forces.More info 👇 https://t.co/A7d5iI5Qr9September 15, 2021

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Unfortunately, this comic will only be available to those who attend the Comic Con panel from Sledgehammer Games in person. Featured in the panel itself will be Call of Duty: Vanguard writers Sam Maggs and Stephen Rodes, supported by narrative designers Tochi Onyebuchi and Brent Friedman, which is sure to be a fascinating look into the narrative workings of the forthcoming Call of Duty game.

If you’re unfamiliar with Polina, the character was first unveiled as a protagonist in Call of Duty: Vanguard’s single-player component last month at Gamescom Opening Night Live. In a gameplay demo, we saw Polina sneaking around enemy troops in Moscow, taking them out one by one in stealthy action, before switching to a gunfight when the going got tough. Polina is played by veteran actor Laura Bailey, who you might know from The Last of Us 2, Uncharted 4, and many other games.

Call of Duty: Vanguard launches later this year on November 5 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. The Call of Duty: Vanguard beta isn’t done just yet, but it is entering the final stages, as the beta opens up to all players who have pre-ordered Vanguard, regardless of their platform, later today on September 16.

For a complete recap of the legal situation currently unfolding around Call of Duty publisher Activision head over to our Activision Blizzard lawsuit explained guide for more.

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All of that was on show in the Stalingrad demo. It’s a stunning nine minutes of footage, working to showcase what can happen when Call of Duty is given an extra year of development. I personally thought that last year’s Black Ops Cold War looked a little washed out, but Vanguard appears to have picked up right where Infinity Ward and Modern Warfare left off. The visual and audio fidelity is out of control; the lighting, environmental and particle effects help to immediately create a foreboding sense of atmosphere. As for the ever-impressive soundscape, well, it’s no surprise that Vanguard’s creative director used to hold the position of senior audio director at Sledgehammer. 

In fact, it looks and sounds so good that it’s almost easy to miss the new (and some returning Modern Warfare) features, like the light platforming mechanics to help Lt. Polina Petrova reposition herself during combat, the ability to mount and blind fire weapons, the detailed handling and reload animations, and greater points of interaction with the crumbling environment. But here’s the thing: Sledgehammer knows how to make great looking and sounding games. By looking at Vanguard from the perspective of 2017’s WW2, it’s clear that there are far greater issues the studio needs to address to make its second shot at the Second World War a journey worth taking on November 5, 2021.

From Verdansk to the Western Front

The Battle of Verdansk wasn’t the greatest live event in Call of Duty: Warzone history, but it did inspire me to return to one of the more divisive entries in the series. It was that agonizing battle against a German armored train, equipped with rows of anti-tank ordinance and compartments concealing ranks of soldiers, that did it, reminding me of one of the better missions in Call of Duty: WW2.

S.O.E. sees the 1st Division team up with members of the British Special Operations Executive to intercept an armored train carrying V2 Rockets just outside of Argentan. Things go wrong, then the bullets start flying, and then things start to go really right. The mission is as explosive as it is shallow; loud, brash, and decently paced, which is perhaps the best way to describe Call of Duty’s return to World War 2 after it spent nine years exploring the frontiers of modern, advanced, and then infinite warfare. 

It’s a solid entry to the series let down by a lot of competing objectives. Call of Duty: WW2 fails to reflect the scale of the conflict happening around you, but manages to keep you busy enough that you very rarely notice. The return of health packs after a decade of regenerating HP, and the introduction of squad abilities to help keep your consumables stocked, were interesting concepts that were poorly executed. It’s telling that our first look at the Call of Duty: Vanguard campaign confirmed that automatic health regeneration is returning, the UI has been heavily scaled back, and that the confined, claustrophobic combat spaces of a Stalingrad under siege were used to highlight an intimacy to its engagements. 

Where those engagements will take place in Call of Duty: Vanguard clearly demonstrates that Sledgehammer has learned from its last entry too. The decision to focus the Call of Duty: WW2 campaign on one squad, around some of the most widely known conflicts of the Second World War – D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, Hill 493, and I’m sure you can guess the rest – made sense conceptually, but the resulting experience felt as if it were treading old ground. By the time the WW2 campaign reached its end, it felt like I’d sat through a highlight reel of Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2, and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault rendered out in 1080p. 

Vanguard is set to span four theaters of war and four playable characters, each with their own unique abilities, motivations, and identities based in reality: Sergeant Arthur Kingsley, British Army’s 9th Parachute Battalion; Captain Wade Jackson, of the US Navy’s Scouting Squadron Six; Second Lieutenant Lucas Riggs, of the Australia Military Forces’ 20th Battalion; and, of course, Lt. Polina Petrova, of the Red Army’s 138th Rifle Division. The decision to take a contemporary lens on history, and to explore less visible elements of the Second World War, will certainly help breathe new life into Call of Duty’s renewed focus on World War 2.  

Vanguard takes form

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For more details on the upcoming instalment to the series, get your eyes on our Call of Duty: Vanguard preview. 

The truth is, the video game industry has largely moved on from World War 2. There was a point in time where the replication of scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, and Enemy at the Gates highlighted the strides studios were making with visual fidelity and immersion. With WW2, Call of Duty got caught trying to pass old tricks off as new; it trapped itself in the gulf between fun and realism, and never found a way to free itself. While there is, admittedly, a small part of me that would like to see what this team, working with this engine and experience, could do with something like the assault of Point du Hoc on this new generation of consoles, it’s unnecessary. 

Sledgehammer needs to take a modern perspective on the Second World War, and it needs to reflect how far the industry has come – games don’t look, sound, play, or tell stories like they did when Call of Duty 2 defined a new generation of shooters in 2005. The success or failure of Call of Duty: Vanguard will likely depend on how aware Sledgehammer is of this, and how it presents and paces the action through a darker and more claustrophobic examination of World War 2. If this first look at Vanguard is any indication, I’d say Sledgehammer has learned all the right lessons from its last trip to the Western Front.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is set to launch on November 5, 2021. It’s being developed by Sledgehammer Games and is set to launch on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Publisher Activision is being investigated by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and you can read more about the  Activision Blizzard lawsuit here. 

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The behemoth series is back and the game launches on November 5, 2021. If you want to be playing it on day one and as soon as is possible then a Call of Duty: Vanguard pre-order is the way to go, and this page will help you achieve just that.

If you’re looking for the perennially popular and reliable mega retailer’s pages then here are the direct links to Amazon and each version’s listing:

PS5 @ Amazon (opens in new tab) | PS4 @ Amazon (opens in new tab)
Xbox Series X @ Amazon (opens in new tab) | Xbox One @ Amazon (opens in new tab)

The latest in the series sees Sledgehammer Games take control and take us back to a World War II setting via the Modern Warfare engine and looks to instill the true horrors of war in us as we play. Almost as far as survival horror. You can read up more on the game and its themes, features, setting, and more, in our Call of Duty Vanguard: preview which will set you up nicely before September’s Call of Duty: Vanguard beta, too.

Our price and deal-finding tech below will be constantly working hard to dig out the latest Call of Duty: Vanguard pre-order prices wherever you are, and no matter what you play on. Here are the latest prices going right now: 

The news that the PS5 version will boast a 120Hz refresh rate is welcome news too, but also means that you’ll need one of the best 120hz 4K TVs or best TVs for PS5 to ensure you make the most of it.

It’s worth remembering that this is another big game release that will span two console generations, so there are some key facts to remember when looking to pre-order Call of Duty. 

If you’ve been lucky enough to get your hands on PS5 stock, then the PS5 version will be, naturally, the best version, but if you’re on PS4 still then just pay attention to the fact that you will not get a PS5 version or upgrade for free. You will have a chance to upgrade to the PS5 version via the PlayStation Store for a discounted price but this is the only way – bar buying two copies – of buying one physical copy for PS4 to then use to get a PS5 version.

On Xbox, the picture is somewhat similar as the Xbox Series X and Xbox One versions are separate. The lines are slightly blurred as you can buy an XSX disc that will work on an Xbox one console – but it will not be the new-gen version. 

The simplest way to navigate is to literally just ensure you buy the version that matches with the console you’ll be playing on. If it happens to be the last-gen version then at least you can play that version o the new-gen machines even if it won’t be the shiniest of versions. One way to get around this could be to go digital on either console, where you can purchase Cross-Gen bundles that’ll bag you both versions in one transaction.

Looking to pre-order or buy another big game?

There’s a bunch of games worth pre-order consideration or past releases worthy of finding the lowest prices on and these pages will help you to do so:

• Pre-order Far Cry 6
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla price
• Ghost of Tsushima price (opens in new tab)
• Cyberpunk 2077 price (opens in new tab)
• Marvel’s Avengers the game price (opens in new tab)
• The Last of Us 2 price (opens in new tab)
• Final Fantasy 7 Remake price (opens in new tab)
• Outer Worlds price (opens in new tab)
• Death Stranding price (opens in new tab)
• Pokemon Shield price (opens in new tab)
• Pokemon Sword deals (opens in new tab)
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order price (opens in new tab)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare price (opens in new tab)
• Animal Crossing New Horizons price (opens in new tab)
• Doom Eternal price (opens in new tab)
• Resident Evil 3 Remake price (opens in new tab)

Call of Duty’s publisher has been in the news for other reasons recently so head over to our Activision Blizzard lawsuit explained guide for further details.

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