CoD Vanguard devs reveal Beta fixes locked for full release: Spawns, weapon balance, more

Brad Norton
Vanguard beta fixes

The Call of Duty Vanguard Beta may have only just come to an end, but the developers at Sledgehammer Games are already hard at work polishing a few key areas for improvement in the full release this November.

After months of anticipation, the CoD community has finally had its first taste of this year’s release. The Vanguard Beta is now in the rear-view mirror and while it wasn’t without its fair share of issues, many aspects of the game have already been targeted for urgent fixes.

While hacking problems and various bugs weren’t mentioned, a few glaring issues were detailed in Sledgehammer’s September 22 blog post.

Sledgehammer Games has confirmed a number of improvements have either “already been fixed,” just hours after the Beta closed its doors, or have been highlighted as a top priority for fixes ahead of the November 5 launch.

At the very top of their list is the hottest topic: Vanguard’s sun. From day one in the Beta players were growing frustrated with over-the-top glare on certain maps. Thankfully, by the time Vanguard releases in full, the sun will have been “nerfed,” Sledgehammer confirmed.

Next up, both Red Star and Hotel Royal have been tweaked to some degree. The large, snow-covered map is being hit with some visual improvements while the smaller nighttime map should have improved spawns to “avoid murder kitchen” scenarios.

As the top killstreak available in the Beta, Attack Dogs had their fair share of problems as well. These issues are already behind us; “dognados” will no longer haunt players at launch.

Last but not least, a popular S&D flaw has been patched up. Players could talk trash between rounds during the Beta and although some loved this throwback to the earlier days of CoD, it doesn’t appear to have been an intentional feature.

Vanguard gameplay
Expect to see new weapons rise to the top at Vanguard’s launch as a result of the next major balance pass.

Devs are also eager to take another pass at weapon balancing before the full slate of weapons becomes available. Similarly, both audio mixing and visibility should see some improvements as well.

With six weeks left until Vanguard arrives, expect to see plenty more announcements before we get our hands on the full release.