'Vanguard' Is Call Of Duty's Worst Launch In 14 Years, Report Suggests

According to sales statistics from its launch week, Call Of Duty: Vanguard has stumbled out of the gates compared to its predecessors. 

Gamesindustry.biz collated the game sales data for the week ending November 6th, 2021, and even though Vanguard is the king of the castle in the top ten, its sales aren’t a patch on last year’s Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. While our Phil Boon said that the game looks brilliant on his next-gen console, the multiplayer wasn’t as interesting as it could have been. “It did feel like I was playing Call of Duty: WWII again, or a slightly reskinned version, as there’s really not that much between the two games,” he explained in his review. 

There's some strong language in this clip, but check out Warzone pro Lexlou930 setting a sexist player straight in the most satisfying way.

It is possible that this fatigue for Call Of Duty has impacted its performance in its opening week, which we would expect to be exceedingly strong given the power and popularity of the series. Overall, Vanguard’s campaign won a lot of praise for its content and grounded storylines whereas its Zombies mode left players feeling like those titular shambling masses. That’s without mentioning the usual PlayStation exclusive goodies which were… meh to say the least. 

When we take a look at Vanguard against Black Ops Cold War, the most recent game’s sales dipped by 40% compared to the success of 2020’s entry. Splitting that statistic, physical retail sales fell by 26% whereas digital sales decreased by 44%. Gamesindustry.biz helpfully recalls that the transition from last-gen to new-gen hardware may have caused players to hold off buying Vanguard until it is discounted — the game is £70 on PlayStation 5 and £60 on Xbox Series X and S. 

And, there’s the endurance of Warzone to consider, too. The battle royale will welcome the new Caldera map that will tie into Vanguard, but not before the Operation: Flashback that will go live on November 18th. This is the “last dance” for Verdansk as it will be destroyed forever (for real this time) ahead of Caldera’s arrival. 

Topics: Call Of Duty, PlayStation, Xbox, Activision