Vanguard's campaign features similar gameplay mechanics previously introduced in Modern Warfare, such as the player being able to mount wielded weapons to flat surfaces, interact with doors and execute takedowns.

New gameplay features allow the player the ability to use a more advanced tactical approach in combat such as blind firing from behind cover, breaking through destructible environmental elements or creating new paths to complete objectives by climbing walls.

[19] Post-launch updates for Zombies feature additional objectives for Der Anfang, including a main quest for story progression, as well as new Covenants and field upgrades.

The player takes control of various members of Task Force Vanguard, a team formed by the Special Operations Executive to uncover Phoenix, a secret Nazi project.

Supporting characters appear in flashbacks, including British Army Corporal Thomas Jones (Max Deacon), Polina's brother Misha Petrov (Mark Ivanir), Aviation Machinist Mate 3rd Class Mateo Hernandez (Christopher Rivas), Private Desmond "Des" Wilmot (Nikolai Nikolaeff), and Robert Jacobs (Jack Hawkins).

Other antagonists include Hauptsturmführer Jannick Richter (Dominic Monaghan), the interrogator of Task Force Vanguard while they are captured, SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Leo Steiner (Ray Proscia), the commander in charge of invading Stalingrad, and British Army Major Henry Hamms (James Frain), who frequently antagonizes the Australians in North Africa.

The Zombies story takes place in early 1944, and depicts a team of Special Forces operators being drafted into a battle against an undead army, led by Oberführer Wolfram Von List (Kaiser Johnson), commander of SS unit Die Wahrheit.

Krafft provides the Special Forces operators with other artifacts, which allow them to form their own symbiotic links with four other entities: Saraxis the Shadow (Alexa Kahn), Inviktor the Destroyer (Regi Davis), Norticus the Conqueror (Wally Wingert) and Bellekar the Warlock (Abby Craden).

Additional Dark Aether entities later join the conflict, including Vercanna the Last (Jodi Carlisle), who allies with the Special Forces team, and Zaballa the Deceiver, Kortifex's lieutenant.

Riggs, Des and Jacobs manage to find intelligence relating to General Erwin Rommel, and destroy an enemy depot in the process, but are detained by Major Henry Hamms for insubordination.

In June 1942, United States Navy pilot Lieutenant Wade Jackson participates in the Battle of Midway with his tail gunner, Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class Mateo Hernandez, in their Douglas SBD Dauntless.

In June 1944, British Army paratrooper Sergeant Arthur Kingsley takes part in Operation Tonga, where he and the Parachute Regiment help destroy the Merville Gun Battery and several bridges to assist the Allied forces in invading Normandy.

Kingsley, Webb, Petrova, Jackson and Riggs, alongside a sixth soldier, Yugoslav partisan Milos Novak, would eventually be recruited by Captain Carver Butcher to form the first special operations task force, callsign Vanguard.

In April 1945, Task Force Vanguard hijacks a train to Hamburg in search of intelligence regarding Project Phoenix, a secret Nazi program run by Freisinger.

As Berlin falls under siege by the Red Army following Adolf Hitler's suicide, Riggs breaks out of interrogation and frees the squad, while Kingsley kills Richter to avenge Webb.

In March 1951, Butcher dispatches Task Force Harpy to Caldera to intercept a Nazi arms convoy, where they find a radio emitting a mysterious primal sound.

One such entity, Kortifex the Deathless, forms a symbiotic bond with Oberführer Wolfram Von List, Die Wahrheit's commander, and bestows him the power to resurrect the dead.

This is a built-for-next-generation experience with stunning visuals across campaign, multiplayer and cooperative modes of play designed to both integrate with and enhance the existing COD [Call of Duty] ecosystem.

[27][28] The game's visuals are developed in part using photogrammetry and new volumetric lighting techniques while also introducing reactive and destructible environmental graphical details and textures with a damage layer system which reacts to bullet impacts hitting different surfaces.

[citation needed] On August 25, during Gamescom, Sledgehammer Games revealed the first extended playthrough of Vanguard's campaign missions set in the Eastern Front called "Stalingrad Summer".

This mission gives an insight regarding the initial invasion of Stalingrad in 1942 from the perspective of Petrova (voiced by Laura Bailey) as she tries to find a way home after an aerial attack while eliminating hostile German infantry search crews.

[9] On September 7, during a nearly 30-minute live broadcast on YouTube, led by the members of Sledgehammer Games development team, creative director Greg Reisdorf, lead designer Zach Hodson, and associate art director Matt Abbott, in-depth details of Vanguard's multiplayer had been revealed, showcasing some components of tactical gameplay, the variations of competitive gamemodes, while emphasizing the details of the newly introduced environmental destruction gameplay features.

Publications attributed the publisher's decision with an attempt to distance itself from Vanguard due to the California lawsuit filed against them, following incidents of sexual harassment within the company.

In response to gaming journalist Stephen Totilo, an Activision spokesman said that the change was "a creative choice that reflects how Vanguard represents the next major installment in the franchise".

A cosmetic bundle was released on January 20, 2022, in Vanguard and Warzone, featuring themed weapon blueprints and a skin for operator Daniel Yatsu based on the character Levi Ackerman.

[42] The collaboration was officially announced on April 21, 2022, featuring in-game events and map changes for Warzone, and cosmetic items themed after Godzilla, Kong and Mechagodzilla.

[48][47][46] IGN's Simon Cardy awarded the game a 7 out of 10, summarizing their review by saying, "Call of Duty: Vanguard's highly polished campaign provides a healthy amount of fun, even if its brief length and lack of variety lead it to fall short of the classic pieces of war cinema it's trying to emulate.

"[58] Clement Goh of CGMagazine wrote that "Call of Duty: Vanguard falls in the predictable traps of an annual release, but pulls through with a fun campaign and multiplayer at the cost of duller Zombies", also giving the game a 7 out of 10.

[59] Yussef Cole of Polygon criticized Vanguard's retelling of the Second World War, saying that its progressive lens suffered from a superficial sense of diversity and from tokenism, whitewashing both history and the workplace practices of Activision Blizzard the company had received a lawsuit for.

"[60] John Walker of Kotaku wrote that the game "wants to ride the zeitgeist of progressive representation, without ever giving a moment's thought to just how poorly it rewrites the reality of marginalized people involved in the war."