With that in mind, the way that Vanguard has to bend over backwards to fit its World War II fiction into the obligations of Warzone is downright comical. Do I think World War II weapons are cool? Yes.

(Besides, the way that some people cry about how weapons and other various machinations of death appear in different forms of media can border on the fetishistic. I’ve always felt that Call of Duty did an admirable job at portraying the “greatest hits” of World War II’s battles from the perspectives of normal infantry soldiers, but even then there are limitations to how much reverence for sacrifice a video game can have. Listen, I don’t care if Vanguard-a World War II shooter-is historically accurate or not.

Vanguard, having learned from its predecessor, seems poised for the transition, but it’s also forced the game to make some questionable creative choices, especially for a World War II Call of Duty title. The first game to have to do so was Cold War, and the integration of that game’s content into the Warzone ecosystem nearly broke the billions-earning free-to-play title. Instead of each Call of Duty game servicing the fans’ demands and their own ambitions, they now must also service Warzone’s particular demands, too-namely in how it’s used to sell microtransactions, but also on a gameplay level. It’s hard to imagine this release strategy not impacting the developers’ creative decisions in some capacity.

Nowhere is this more obvious with Call of Duty: Vanguard than on the main menu screen, which is divided into equal fourths: one sliver reserved for Vanguard, one for Warzone, one for Black Ops Cold War, and one for Modern Warfare. The rise of Warzone from 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot has necessitated that each annual Call of Duty game no longer function as a standalone product, but as the next appendage of a complex, overarching platform. In the last four years since Sledgehammer Games released Call of Duty: WWII, Activision’s perennial shooter series has undergone its most massive transformation since 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

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