Call Of Duty: Vanguard's Destructible Environments Don't Go Far Enough
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Taking players back to the historical battlegrounds of World War II, Call of Duty: Vanguard strives to fully immerse gamers into its various maps, and one of the ways it does this is through destructible environments. The recent alpha test for Sledgehammer Games' first-person shooter allows players to fight through several locations, ranging from Paris' elegant Hotel Royal to the snowy streets of Stalingrad. Call of Duty: Vanguard's destructible environments, which are said to enhance players' tactical options in combat, are a highly-advertised new feature, but unfortunately, the placement and amount of destructible architecture showcased in the alpha leaves much to be desired.
Call of Duty has flirted with destructibility before, such as in Ghosts, but Vanguard doesn't appear to be making quite as much a leap forward here as some might have hoped. Destructible environments in a first-person shooter game can open up a world of possibilities for players. Combat in this action-packed genre is based on moving across the map and taking cover to survive a firefight. When well-implemented, destructible environments can put a twist on both of these actions. Destroying pieces of the map, such as a bridge or sniper's nest, can limit how a team positions themselves against their opponent. Meanwhile, destructible cover has a more immediate affect on combat. If a piece of cover can be destroyed, players will keep moving lest the enemy uses overwhelming firepower to destroy their safe spot.
Unfortunately, Call of Duty: Vanguard's destructible cover is not nearly in-depth enough to properly change the game. Rather than making a majority of each map vulnerable to destruction, like the rival Battlefield series, the maps available in Vanguard's beta only makes very specific pieces of each map destructible. A majority of these elements appear to be weak wooden walls which can be smashed or shot apart once the match begins. This serves little purpose other than to briefly block a path through the map, which will be opened and left opened very quickly once the fighting starts. There do exist some pieces of destructible cover, but they are quite sparse and serve little use due to their fragility.
In order to improve destructible environments, whether it be in Call of Duty: Vanguard or a future installment in the series, the level of destruction should be made more realistic. Rather than only allowing very specific pieces of each map to be destroyed, like glass windows and shoddy wooden boards, almost any piece of the level should be vulnerable. Different materials could have different durability, making wooden boards to be easily shot through while concrete structures would be more likely to survive an entire match. This would also make Vanguard's powerful killstreaks even more potent, as dropping an explosive device would potentially blast apart cover or open up a new route through the map.
While the Call of Duty series does focus on smaller maps than some other franchises, more widely destructible environments would still be wonderful feature to implement. By improving Vanguard's version of the mechanic, entirely new tactical options could be opened up for players to utilize. Spending a valuable explosive device to destroy a particularly annoying piece of enemy cover would give combat a whole new flow, and killstreaks could become even more deadly. Call of Duty: Vanguard developer Sledgehammer Games has promised to address feedback from the game's alpha, but improving destructible environments may be a task best left for a future installment in the series.
Call of Duty: Vanguard will release on November 5, 2021 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.