Leak: No Round-Based Zombies Map Coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard

A prolific leaker and dataminer has revealed that Call of Duty: Vanguard will likely never get a round-based Zombies mode.

Vanguard zombies round based maps
We likely will not receive a round-based map in Call of Duty: Vanguard. | © Activision

A Twitter leak, which has since met with a potential DMCA strike, has made the claim that Call of Duty: Vanguard Season One will not feature a round-based Zombies map. The leak was backed up by prolific leaker and dataminer TheMW2Ghost, who also ventured to make a few claims of his own. The twist? You truly won't like what he had to say, as it more-or-less cements that Vanguard's Zombies will go down in history as one of the worst in the series.

The curious case of Call of Duty: Vanguard's Zombies mode still continues to astound us, even weeks after our review it's being slammed for being "basically [just] a leveling tool for people who don't want to play multiplayer". Since the game's launch, nothing has really been added to the mode, with promises being made for a robust Zombies to come. The catch is that Sledgehammer Games owed us a robust Zombies mode when we paid $70 for the game. It's hardly fair enough to say "oh, it's coming later". We paid for it now, we should have it now, everything added after launch is just a bonus.

Now, with this latest leak, we are continuing to lose the hope that Sledgehammer Games will (at least eventually) deliver something of quality in Call of Duty: Vanguard. Treyarch is developing Vanguard's Zombies mode, but the overall project is Sledgehammer Games' responsibility, and it's under their watch that this has happened. Zombies is so disappointing in Call of Duty: Vanguard that we can't even bring ourselves to go back and try it out again. Check out our first impressions video below...

Call of Duty: Vanguard Will Not Feature a Round-Based Zombies Mode

A leak, originally dropped by MargwaNetwork, suggests that Season One of Vanguard's Zombies Mode will not introduce a round-based map. What is even more devastating, though, is that the post was removed, probably due to a copyright strike. There is only one realistic reason why a leak like this would be removed: because it's true. It's insanely suspicious that such a claim would be censored on Twitter, and it would be equally absurd if the claim turned out to be incorrect.

More drastic, though, is TheMW2Ghost's claim that "it's likely we will not see a RB map for #Vanguard zombies at all". This is a scary prospect, as if what we can expect from the rest of Vanguard's Zombies mode is just more of these soulless portal-based hub arena's, then there will literally be no point in keeping up with it. That goes especially for those of us who enjoyed the Dark Aether Storyline in Black Ops Cold War, and don't want that experience soured by a pitiful follow-up. Sadly, this reality is becoming increasingly likely.

It's a pretty horrendous prospect, the idea of never receiving a Round-Based Zombies Map in Call of Duty: Vanguard, as that's really the reason we all play Zombies. Black Ops Cold War struck the perfect balance between doing all sorts of crazy new experiences, and also delivering that crisp Zombies experience we all crave. It seems that Sledgehammer Games has really dropped the ball here, and we're not going to be particularly friendly about that fact.

We keep referring to Sledgehammer Games, as the barebones nature of Vanguard's Zombies mode is hardly Treyarch's fault. After all, due to the mess of Vanguard's development, Treyarch had to move up the release of Black Ops Cold War, and then support it with twelve months of post-launch content. Meanwhile, they were desperately trying to cobble together at least something to launch with Call of Duty: Vanguard, and assumedly working on their next title, which is due out in 2023. It's a shame this has happened, but considering the situation we're in, it's not really a surprise.

Evan Williams

Australian gamer, musician, and journalist at EarlyGame. Currently living in Germany so no, I don't ride a Kangaroo to work. I am currently hard at work making our CoD and Rocket League pages the best on the internet. Lofty ambitions,...