Treyarch Details Call of Duty: Vanguard's New Zombies Features

By Tanner Dedmon

Call of Duty: Vanguard's Zombies trailer was followed by a full reveal of the core game mode on Thursday to discuss all of the new features present in the new take on Zombies. Players will still have hordes of the undead to mow down, but just as the mode has changed with each new Call of Duty game, things will work a bit differently in Vanguard as the game mode returns to its World War II roots.

While playing as the Special Forces Operators present in other parts of Vanguard, players continue the Dark Aether storyline in this new Zombies experience. The big bad is Oberführer Von List who's been bonded with Kortifex the Deathless with the former now able to reanimate the dead, hence the legions of zombies.

Von List uses the Kortifex entity to pursue his own goals, but players will have their own entities to utilize. Treyarch shared some details on those entities and their corresponding artifacts to better explain some of what we saw in the trailer.

"When a human interacts with one of the artifacts, they form a connection with its corresponding Dark Aether entity," Treyarch said. "Each of them gives access to a different ability. Pick up the Sword of Inviktor and gain his Ring of Fire attack. The Mask of Bellekar grants her Aether Shroud power, the Horn of Norticus grants Frost Blast, and the Dragon of Saraxis grants Energy Mine."

Once you hop into a Zombies match, players begin in a starting area filled with zombies and possible upgrades like you'd normally encounter. Branching from that are different portals that take players to one of three objectives: Blitz, Transmit, and Harvest.

By completing these objectives, you'll gain access to more perks and resources to help you survive longer runs. You also get a "Sacrificial Heart" which is used at the "Alter of Covenants," a new system used to diversify playstyles.

"After every objective, players are rewarded with a Sacrificial Heart to spend at the Altar of Covenants, offering a wide variety of randomized upgrades to choose from, such as Ammo Gremlin, Brain Rot, or Unholy Ground," Treyarch said. "The Altar of Covenants also provides Covenants of increasing rarity and power as the match goes on, so keep an eye out for those Legendary Covenants as you survive further into the game."

Weapon acquisitions also work a bit differently in this Zombies mode. You get a primary weapon and an artifact of choice at the start of the match, but if you want more weapons, you gain them "by looting chests, killing zombies, and gambling on the Mystery Box in place of traditional Wall Buys," Treyarch said. The Mystery Box will of course be at your disposal, too, with the box's rewards becoming more powerful as the match goes on.

More details on the Zombies mode in Call of Duty: Vanguard can be found through Treyarch's blog post about the topic.

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