The open beta is finally here for the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise – Call of Duty: Vanguard.
Players who pre-ordered the game could play the Early Access beta as early as September 10th.
But now anyone can download the Vanguard open beta for free.
How to download Call of Duty: Vanguard Open Beta
On your console or PC, open either Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or Call of Duty: Warzone.
If you don’t have any of these games, download Warzone. It’s free on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.
Once the game has loaded into the main menu, move your joystick over to the left-hand side of the screen where you’ll see “Call of Duty: Vanguard Multiplayer Open Beta Live”. Select that and it’ll take you to the appropriate download page for your platform.
Players who reach at least level 20 will receive the “Rat-A-Tat” weapon blueprint to use when the game launches on November 5th.
Playing the Call of Duty: Vanguard Open Beta
Upon opening the game, you’ll see three tabs – “Play”, “Weapons” and “Store”.
“Store” simply gives you the option to pre-order the full Call of Duty: Vanguard game before its release on November 5th.
“Weapons” is where you’ll customize your loadouts, killstreaks, and field upgrades.
But “Play” is the one we’re mainly interested in!
There are five game modes to choose from in the Vanguard beta. Quick Play is a rotating playlist of core Call of Duty games including old favorites like Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination, and Search & Destroy.
There is one new addition though called Patrol. If you’re a fan of Hardpoint and Domination, you should like this. Patrol is essentially Hardpoint, but if the hardpoint slowly moved around the map. Alright, I’ve made it sound worse than it actually is. It’s fun!
Aside from the core games in Quick Play, there are a couple of other modes too which are brand new to Vanguard.
These are Blitz, an intense variation on Team Deathmatch and Champion Hill, a game in which your entire team shares a number of lives and the team that survives, wins.
Champion Hill follows in the footsteps of many Warzone games – able to be played in solo, duo or trio modes.
Notable Observations
I’m a big fan of the music created for Call of Duty games. Anything with strings or brass makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
Vanguard’s multiplayer theme sounds James Bond-esque with a strong guitar melody and some brass underneath, creating a powerful, driving feel with much pace. It actually sounds rather similar to the theme from Torchwood: Miracle Day.
Something I noticed was the language used for the objectives in Domination. As I’m sure you’re aware, the objectives “A”, “B”, and “C” are usually referred to as “Alpha”, “Bravo” and “Charlie”. But Vanguard uses the former phonetic alphabet, in which “Alpha” and “Bravo” were instead “Able” and “Baker”.
Glitches
One criticism, though, is that I’m tired of hearing “They’re looking at me!” and “I can’t move, the fire is too heavy!” every five seconds. The developers should add a condition that your character only uses each non-essential line once in a 30-second period or something.
As can be expected with a beta version of the game (and, hey, let’s be honest, the supposedly “stable” version isn’t always that great), there are some glitches that need to be ironed out before the final release. But that’s the point of a beta. To identify and eliminate glitches.
When I first started playing, I could tell this was definitely a pre-release version of the game. The controls felt oversensitive and the graphics were choppy, something a fellow player also pointed out in chat during a game of Kill Confirmed.
But after a couple of games, it seemed to sort itself out. The graphics became a lot clearer and smoother. Perhaps the developers were pushing updates as we were playing. Or maybe the servers were just too congested.
There was also a time when the score seemed to overrun while I was playing. My team scored 200 which should have been the end of the match, but the enemy team scored 201, so we lost.
Call of Duty: Vanguard is out on November 5th and available to pre-order now
