Call Of Duty: Vanguard's Campaign Is An Insult To World War II

A misguided attempt to rewrite history for the better demeans those involved.

[Father__Merrin]

The Whole entirety of WW2 was a sham to begin with. Peace terms should have been agreed 🤝 to avoid it all

[Welshy]

You might want to pick up a history book, the nazis weren't particularly interested in peace...

[rdgneoz3]

They were interested in peace for Germans / blonde haired, blue eyed, whites... Besides that, they wanted a piece of this place and a piece of that place...

[4Sh0w]

Merrin,

Seriously are you OK, it sounds like a 5 yr old jacked your account.

[Kurt Russell]

I think there is fair argument that the years of German economic depression set forth from the "peace terms" of WW1 were a catalyst for such people to talk their way into power.

Hopefully the world has truly learned from it all.

[CrimsonWing69]

Did you go to school? Like, I’m not trying to take a jab at you, I just literally have no idea where you got your info to make a statement like that.

[Father__Merrin]

@crimson it's because I dont believe in war. WW2 was too much suffering

[TheColbertinator]

Hitler and his Nazi lackey psychopaths had plotted violent uprisings and targeted assassinations for years before they conquered Europe.

The Munich Beer Hall Putsch was merely the first step for that madman. There was no negotiation with a man like that.

[Kaozz1979]

Dumbest comment I have read on N4g and that means a lot

[Smok91]

Completely disagree. Nazis needed to die.
This dude really wanted an agreement with Nazis.

[iplay1up2]

Einstein, Hitler wanted to take over all of Europe. His army took over everything from Poland to France! He also had 10 million killed in concentration camps. How would "peace terms" have affected that? Hand over all Jews, Gypsy's, gay people, also challenged people, have them all killed for "peace". You need a serious HISTORY LESSON! I can not even grasp your ignorance!

[AnotherGamer]

....what kind of world are you living in? There's hell lot of documents and history books about ww2, damn even video footage. Go get educated.

[Yppupdam]

WOW....(This is what happens when people only read Harry Potter novels) If you knew what you were talking about you would have known that at the beginning (1938), the then Prime minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain hammered out a Peace Treaty with Germany (The Munich Agreement). Allowing Hitler to keep a large part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler has been known to say that he thought Chamberlan was a fool and the Munich Agreement a worthless piece of paper. He ignored the treaty and eventually took over The rest of Czechoslovakia, Poland and France. Peace treaties don't work with despots with aspirations of world domination and the genocide of races The Nazis deemed undesirable. The Nazis would have been all too happy, after every subsequent invasion, to sign peace treaty after peace treaty until they took over the whole world.

[Rebel_Scum]

Chamberlain made an agreement with the Nazi's to not grab anymore land. A year later the Nazi's invaded Poland. So much for the peace terms.

[Rimeskeem]

You act like it was avoidable. The only reason the US even fought was because peace could not be maintained.

[W34KN35S]

The way you communicated your point came off as WW2 was a conspiracy and that people shouldn't stand up to evil , which is why you got the backlash. Just because you doesn't mean it wont happen. Some wars are needed , there are bad people in the world, and will be for a long time. Justified wars are when good people decide to fight back against evil people.

"The Whole entirety of WW2 was a sham to begin with." sham is not a good word to use in this instance.

Your point seems to be that you dont like people getting hurt or suffering, so wars that aren't JUSTIFIED are pointless . If that is your point then instead of your first comment, you could've said something along the lines of :

"I'm not a fan of people getting hurt or suffering and would love if we lived in a world where everyone could get along peacefully. "
wishful thinking but again , there will be people who hurt and cause suffering for a long time , which is why you need people who are willing to stand up against it and fight back, whether that be everyday life or war.

[philm87]

Father__Merrin you are the epitome of ignorance.

[SurgicalMenace]

So much anger and toxicity. The man said what he said, with that, is his right. Name calling, judgment, etc are all practices and behaviors exercised by the tyrannical figure you all have agreed deserved death. Let's take a moment to allow that to sink in....

[Father__Merrin]

Correct. And I stand by my original post it was a sham and could have been avoided. If all leaders politicians were out of the equation no pole would goto war with a Russian no German with a brit and so and and so forth....

[Yppupdam]

Anger? Toxicity? Just pointing out a bizarre statement it not Toxic. No one is "wishing death" on the OP. everyone is just pointing out his bizarre, "Peter Pan" like post. It would be a wonderful world if everybody was kind and reasonable. But, that is simply not reality. Another thing, It is his right to make that statement, but, it is also every bodies right to disagree.

[SurgicalMenace]

You're right, but to disagree with toxicity, anger, and judgment attached is not necessary. Speaks more volumes of the respondent than the communicator, as none of those elements were present in the original statement. Just an observation.

BTW, I was referring to Hitler deserving death, based on ideologies associated with his tyrannical practices. If the same actions/nature are exhibited by those responding, what do they deserve through their own eyes?🤔

[RebDomine2]

it's an insult to German too ! Waw is way better.

[EnricoPallazzo]

So what I think Kotaku is saying is: game companies should stop trying to pander to "games journalists" and Twitter lunatics because these severely mentally unwell people will always find something to bitch about? Huh.

[moriarty1889]

Well said. The people making these games are all woke morons. every major company today has been infected with this ideaology. Rewriting history to cater to sensitive clowns and their woke minded overlords is their only priority. Making a realistic game based on actual history that is accurate is not. hopefully this woke crap dies off and the world gets back to common sense and reality. Might take a while but one can hope.

[4Sh0w]

Damm he absolutely destroyed this game and frankly Activision should be embarrassed, you'd think knowing how successful the franchise is in regards to sales that they would put more effort into it, instead of just cutting a check to add woke crap, wash their hands and call it a day:

"In its desperate attempts to avoid controversy, the game grabs at armfuls of it, and then defies reality in response. Having a Black British soldier take the lead demands so much interesting commentary, of which there is absolutely none."

"Things venture more daringly when it comes to sexism, because of course they do. The female character, a Russian sniper, gets to say, “Because I’m a WOMAN?!” most of the times she gets a line"

"The whole game reeks of “even though”ism. “Even though she’s a woman…” “Even though he’s a Black man…” Rather than saying anything honest, its painful attempts to be right-on, to do everything short of punching a fist in the air and shouting “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” or “GIRL POWER!”, make it all far more offensive. There’s no truth here, but instead an attempt to wokewash history"

-But even then how did it fail so hard in terms of game stucture:

"My focus here is so heavily on the narrative, because what you actually do is almost a parody of the descent of this franchise. Where 2003’s Call Of Duty has you free to explore its open areas, even allowing you to run and hide to escape the terrifying combat, Vanguard’s very first mission immediately flashed up a warning on screen that I’d ventured three paces too far to the left, and should I not return to the prescribed route I would be killed. I was chasing an enemy soldier."

"As ever, the NPCs want to play the game instead of you, unless it’s about killing the enemy. Constantly shoving to the front, and when they can’t, literally teleporting ahead, your place is always at the back. They have to get there first so they can…not do anything. They all stand next to the German soldiers like old friends, oblivious to how these opponents are shooting only at you with psychic precision."

"Call Of Duty: Vanguard is probably the most visually astonishing game I’ve ever played. It’s also one of the ugliest. It’s a tragic depiction of the descent of a franchise, a game which simultaneously hides from the true horror of WWII and yet for which that horror is not nefarious enough, replaced with childish action heroes and humiliating worse-than-Hitler cartoon villains."

[ManMarmalade]

Nazis in Wolfenstein though

[BenRC01]

If Benetton went to war...
I mean really if you want to go down that road the making video games about millions of people who died isn't exactly pc

[TheDoomedGuy]

its fine if its "bad people" dying.

[Stonilein]

WoKE trash

[moriarty1889]

that it is and this shit needs to die quick.

[Gardenia]

What do you mean trash? Isn't it only normal that from now on every game will have at least 3 lesbians with short blue or pink hair, 5 trannies, 4 black guys (but never Asians) and 2 gender neutrals in a WW2 setting. This is historical accurate of course, but if you would disagree you'd be a racist and your opinion is not a fact.

I think I summed up pretty well what world we live in today.

[Binarycode]

Well said. World gone mad.

[Ninver]

We're fighting a different world war. This one is humanity's integrity.

[Rachel_Alucard]

When I played the campaign, I wasn't bothered by the race or gender of the characters. But the multiplayer clearly has some of the most stereotyped character stories I've seen. Like the one German female was forced to join the girls hitler youth, but just defied her superiors then ran away to be a lesbian with a polish soldier somehow. Why not just make her a polish lesbian instead of the whole first part?

Then you have characters that defy all logic even their own backstory just to paint their home team as the bad guys like the one Japanese soldier who got pissed at his superior officer being abusive and the acts his country committed so his grand plan was to beat him to death then start killing his own people with the help of the allied forces, only for them to turn around and nuke 150k of his own people later.

Finally, you have characters that are just white men in everything but model and pronouns. Their storylines are just things a man did but now blackwashed and male only aspects removed to be as generic as possible. There's the one black chick that is just a fast runner and that's it, a random somalian female but moved to italy so now shes covered under italian designation and her story is just "colonialism bad" so she just starts killing Italians, and finally the indian chick is the same as the somalian, except shes fighting british people instead of italians, shes clearly the only axis force on the allied team which makes no sense.

The bios don't affect anything gameplay wise, but its just jarring to see WW2 on everything only for space aliens and sasquatch to show up in the fight. I'm not surprised these characters are multiplayer only because there's no way they could have these people show up without clown tier laughter ensuing throughout the studio.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Glad at least someone sees how flimsy these pandering attempts by modern media are.

[annoyedgamer]

A bit late to realize this lmao

[Magog]

Kotaku: Please pander to women and minorities
Also Kotaku: Please pander to women and minorities but do it in a historically accurate way in your murder simulator so we can pretend it isn't just pandering.

[Rachel_Alucard]

John Walker was the only person I've seen call out a major dev for lying directly to his face in an interview. I'm surprised he's working for Kotaku, but I know his previous site RPS got taken over by people who would work at Kotaku. So it's like the sites flipped.

[TriniOutsider]

But, yet one of their other writers praised Battlefields V campaign and that game was more alt-history. Than what Sledgehammer did with Vanguard.

Kotaku is full of people that flip-flop all the time.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Different writers, different opinions?

[Review_Rush]

So Cod is good then haha

[TheDoomedGuy]

I really love older WW1 and 2 gunplay. Is the multiplayer worth it? Hesitant to buy this at $70 knowing the campaign is garbage.

[DaniMacYo]

Vanguard itself is an Insult To World War II and FPS everywhere.

[EvertonFC]

"Call Of Duty: Vanguard's Campaign Is An Insult To World War II"

And zombies aren't?

There games ffs just enjoy them. What happened to teenagers and young adults today, did they not get enough milk from mums tit?

[EazyC]

Don't bother depicting history unless it's going to be true to life. Seriously, what is the point?

[Magog]

There is an entire genre called historical fiction...

[EazyC]

Yes but that operates under a decidedly alternate timelines. This is pawned off as a genuine WWII "as it happened" game

[Rachel_Alucard]

That's fine if CoD was doing that like the Resistance series did, but this is being passed off as experiencing instense authentic WW2 action only for the authentic part to get tossed out of the window immediately.

[Omegasyde]

Resistance alt-history was awesome.

I would love for Insomniac to create a new FPS IP.

[pietro1212]

Boy I have news for news for you regarding most history projects.. they’re all exaggerated especially those Slavery movies

[EazyC]

Exaggerated is one thing but this kind of thing is on another level.

[moriarty1889]

True to life history isnt woke or diverse enough for these clowns that do this crap.

[CPTN MITCHELL]

Cod got people hype by showing tanks and planes and it was all CGI and the only level with the plane you can't even do a barrel roll..same kill streak same maps and same boring as mp game modes 1/10

[iplay1up2]

The campaign is great! It also looks amazing on my Series X!

[Ninver]

#paidinfluencer

Game is trash. Pure garbage juice

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

An excellent article that actually presents arguments, makes points and not just whining? From Kotaku no less?

I'll be damned...

[Redemption-64]

Love the campaign, is it woke because there is a black guy and a woman?

[Pocahontas]

Yes just like the lsat three ww2 campaigns. Feels cheesy and forced

[Redemption-64]

I know right, am sure there were no blacks or women in ww2. Wish these devs would stop trying to tell made up stories

[toutmanifik]

Yup

[giveyerheadawobble]

Well, don't ya know, only the white man is good and can save the world. And Jesus...he looked like Fabio.

[SurgicalMenace]

🤣🤣

[dbcoops]

"Wish these devs would stop trying to tell made up stories "

Well they are made up stories and that's the problem most people have with this sort of thing, shoe horning in ethnic or gender specific or in some case non-conforming characters into something for the sake of diversity isn't how to do it, but its all about checking boxes and pandering these days.

You're right woman and people of color served in WWII but as far as front line fighting and certainly special operations it was few and far between. But here is a great example of one group that did fight;

"In the fall of 1941, with invading German forces threatening Moscow, Marina Raskova (known as the “Russian Amelia Earhart”) convinced Joseph Stalin to authorize three regiments of female pilots. The most famous was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, whose pilots hit so many of their targets that the Germans started calling them the Nachthexen, or “night witches.”

How about making a game about that? Its real, its historical, its not forced and its far more compelling a story than what they've done here with COD.

[Redemption-64]

It's only forced because it's not a Whiteman nothing more. It's a video game, where devs are free to tell made up stories using any backdrop the want. They can make a Whiteman be a one man army, taking down 100s and 100s of enemies and no one will care, but make that same person black or a woman and all of a sudden someone is ready to be triggered or hurt.

If a dev wants to tell a story of a Blackman leading a group of troops on a suicide mission during world War 1 or 2, so be it. They are made up, and I still fail to see why seeing a Blackman or woman as a playable character in a world War game hurts some people so much.

[dbcoops]

"It's only forced because it's not a Whiteman nothing more."

No that's just your opinion based on your own bias which is probably the reason you fail to see why. Don't get me wrong you're entitled to your opinion but so is anyone else who doesn't agree with yours.

[Redemption-64]

I will bet, all those crying about a black man or woman in a world 2 video game would never say a word if all 4 were white. You can have zombies, dragons, mythological weapons and made up things in a world War 2 game, but the second a black person or woman is giving the spotlight for just few levels, someone is ready to cry woke or forced agenda.

[dbcoops]

For the love of all things holy N4G PLEASE fail this article.

[dbcoops]

"woefully inept attempt at exploiting the valuable notion of a diverse, modern-minded game"

Pretty much says all you need to know right there.

[WelkinCole]

I thought the anti woke crowd don't see gender or color lol!

[dbcoops]

Maybe people would see it a lot less if the woke crowd stopped constantly stuffing it in everyone's faces.

[Pocahontas]

Ww2 they were scarce not main characters of the last three entries

[Ninver]

We're fighting a different world war. This one is humanity's integrity...

[giveyerheadawobble]

Only thing you're fighting, son, is puberty and an education. Go do your homework and shut the fuck up.

[Ninver]

Touched a nerve I see. The loudest person in the room is usually the weakest. U wouldn't last a day in my world so quit the tough act.

[Mothman1984]

Wow. Such a mature and reasonable response. Those valid arguments of yours. You must undoubtly be a man / woman / whatever of culture, don't you? I'm impressed.

[giveyerheadawobble]

"You wont last a day in my world"

HAHA

Yeah, OK, Batman.

[SurgicalMenace]

You guys are aware it JUST a video game, right? Though I'm not for all the woke movements either, but NEVER have I seen a person seek out a video games for historical accuracy.

All these woke movements are no different than what was going on in the 70s. Give it time and all of them will fade once they realize that real life requires more than just whinning about haves and have nots. Video games are just a medium of entertainment not the teacher of truth.

[Mothman1984]

I'm afraid that cancel culture and radical woke movement won't just disappear that easily. Their foundations are strong and they have many mindless followers on their side. I'd very much like to believe that situation will just revert back to normal, but I find that unlikely...

[SurgicalMenace]

Knowing they won't disappear, but experiencing a period of hibernation is an acceptable alternative as well.