Call of Duty: Vanguard

Call of Duty: Vanguard is a first-person action shooter from Sledgehammer Games, the eighteenth installment in the main Call of Duty series. The game takes players into the final months of World War II and follows an international squad of soldiers across various battlefronts – from North Africa through a Pacific island to the final assault on Berlin. The campaign is told through the memories of individual characters and places just as much emphasis on their personal stories as on the battles themselves between missions. Alongside the singleplayer campaign, Vanguard offers an extensive multiplayer with numerous maps and game modes, a system of seasonal updates, and a cooperative zombie mode that directly continues the story from the previous Call of Duty: Cold War and World at War entries.

On Xbox Series X|S, Vanguard runs with higher resolution, a more stable frame rate, and in multiplayer also with higher frames-per-second support than on Xbox One. The fast next-generation SSD storage significantly shortens loading times between matches and within the campaign, and the game also supports ray tracing for more realistic lighting and reflections.

Content-wise, the Xbox Series X|S version does not differ from the other platforms – the same campaign, the same multiplayer maps, and the same zombie mode. Thanks to cross-play and cross-progression, players can play with friends on PlayStation, Xbox One, and PC and carry their progress across consoles without loss, including unlocked weapons, attachments, and game progress.

The difference between Xbox Series S and the more powerful Series X is mainly noticeable in image resolution, while the frame rate and loading times remain comparable on both models. For players moving on from Xbox One, this represents a tangible technical leap while keeping exactly the same game content, including the campaign, zombie mode, and all multiplayer modes available on the older Xbox, without needing to purchase any additional content.

Why play it: For players moving on from Xbox One, this is a tangible technical leap without any loss of content, whether they choose the more powerful Series X or the more affordable Series S with lower image resolution.