The Battle Royale Warzone and Call of Duty: Vanguard are growing together with the start of Season 1 on December 2nd. Warzone gets the Vanguard graphics and a lot of content with the latest CoD release. But should you buy the full-price title if you only play Warzone?
Call of Duty: Warzone grows beyond itself in early December. On December 2nd there will be a new map, fresh graphics and the anti-cheat system “RICOCHET”. All these innovations are related to CoD: Vanguard, which has been on the market since November 5th.
Vanguard gives you certain advantages for Warzone, but is it worth buying the new CoD if you only play Warzone? We list the advantages and how Warzone benefits from Vanguard, even if you do not have the new CoD. Then we draw a conclusion, for whom it could be worthwhile.
What does Warzone bring with Vanguard?
First of all: You have no disadvantages when it comes to gameplay-relevant content. All of the content that will come into play over the next few months via Live Seasons is available to you in full and free of charge. However, there are a few advantages that you can secure yourself with the new CoD in Warzone:
- Level weapons
- Train battles
- One day early caldera
- operator
- Exclusive cosmetic bundles
- Zombie camos
Leveling weapons: You can already level the almost 40 new weapons from Warzone in Vanguard. However, it is currently considered very exhausting to advance with the weapon level. It remains to be seen whether this will be faster in Warzone after the release of the Pacific update. So far, however, multiplayer has been considered the best method to level up Warzone weapons. However, booty money is also quite good.
Train battles: In Battle Royale you don’t have the constant battles as in multiplayer and especially beginners should train as much as possible on the weapon. Do you want to get better in Warzone or are fresh in the CoD universe, then the multiplayer CoD Vanguard is better suited for combat training.
Early Access Caldera: You can get a mini advantage in terms of gameplay content: All owners of Vanguard can play the new Warzone map Caldera on December 2nd. For non-buyers, the new Warzone won’t go online until December 3rd, 24 hours later.
Operator: You can only use the basic operators if you unlock them in Vanguard. With the new CoD, the characters can also be leveled and you get cosmetics for the operators. How limited you are with the operator skins is not yet fully understood. But if things go like last year with Cold War, the operators will not be available to you.
As an example with Cold War: If you had not bought the game and activated the seasonal combat package with an operator skin, you could not use this skin.
Zombie Camos: For several generations at CoD you have been able to win skins for certain weapons via weapon challenges, so-called “Camos“. The challenges are then mostly tailored to the multiplayer and provided color in the weapon game.
With Cold War, the zombie mode got its completely own zombie camo collection and Vanguard has these camos again. Without the zombie mode you cannot unlock the camos for Warzone.
Cosmetic bundles: This point should be neglected. But there are a few cosmetic bundles in Cold War and Modern Warfare that you can only buy in the shop in multiplayer. With a very black skin that can give you advantages in the dark.
What’s the point of Warzone without Vanguard?
It can be described like this: If you play Warzone without Vanguard, you have everything you need for a complete gaming experience. Vanguard gives you the extra on top. But even without the new CoD, you can fully benefit from the gameplay innovations and later, free expansions:
- Live Seasons & Battle Pass
- 40 new weapons
- New map caldera
- Fresh game modes & events
- Anti-Cheat “RICOCHET”
- The new graphic
Live Seasons & Battle Pass: Vanguard goes into its first live season on December 2nd and takes Warzone with it. Instead of Season 7, Warzone starts again with Season 1 and the two CoDs then go back to Season 6. Warzone content and the Battle Pass of a new season are fully available to you in the Battle Royale.
New weapons: As soon as you can play the Pacific update of Warzone, almost 40 new weapons will be in the game. There are even 2 new weapons via the Battle Pass.
Pacific Island Caldera: The new map is available for all Warzone players and the old Verdansk map is disappearing completely for the time being. Incidentally, Rebirth Island also remains part of Warzone.
Game modes & events: Via the seasons and playlist updates, modifications of the normal “Battle Royale” mode come into play from time to time and there will also be huge team deathmatches in Warzone style and live events. All of this is also available without Vanguard.
For example, a “Vanguard Royale” has been announced at the start, in which only Vanguard weapons are permitted and you can try out the new planes and anti-air trucks.
Anti-Cheat “RICOCHET”: With this new system, CoD improves its security infrastructure for Vanguard and Warzone. So you benefit from the measures, even without Vanguard. The anti-cheat driver that is part of “RICOCHET” even comes to the warzone first.
New graphics: Warzone becomes Vanguard and gets significantly more from the new CoD than from its predecessor Cold War. Because the Battle Royale takes over completely the graphics engine from Vanguard and is not a new game, but a different one. Here, too, you don’t need Vanguard to be able to play the “new” Warzone.
Movement, graphics, equipment – all the details have not yet been clarified, but the gameplay fundamentals are radically changing and so far we don’t really know what your loadouts will look like at the end of the year.
Do you need Vanguard for Warzone?
If you are a fan of multiplayer, the Battle Royale Warzone is an extremely powerful addition to the CoD experience. It offers you a completely different application of the same techniques that you know from the multiplayer mode and thus an exciting option for all Vanguard players.
But if you are more of a friend of the Battle Royale, then Vanguard is kind of a nice bonus – but for which you have to pay full price to be able to get in. All important content comes to Warzone even without the new CoD.
Vanguard also offers an action-packed campaign and a co-op mode with tons of zombies. If this content also appeals to you, Vanguard is certainly worth considering and the multiplayer has also become strong this year.
However, if you only actually play the Battle Royale Warzone when it comes to PvP mode, then Vanguard is probably not worthwhile for you. The multiplayer mode is the core of Vanguard and if you can’t say for sure that you will play it extensively, save the money or put it in new cosmetics as soon as the Pacific update is online.
In case, if you don’t want to play CoD yet, you can spend time in Division 2 or Outriders.