While the teaser for Call of Duty: Vanguard showed an eerily docile look at four WWII battlefields, the full reveal trailer is loaded with wartime violence.
We see paratroopers floating through a nighttime sky on the Western Front, a sniper picking off a German firing squad on the Eastern Front, an airman dive-bombing a carrier on the Pacific Front, and soldiers rubbing up against tanks during a desert assault in North Africa.
But rather than dropping players into liberal recreations of historic WWII moments as the franchise has done before, Vanguard’s story centers around allied efforts to thwart Project Phoenix.
The fictional operation imagines a scenario in which surviving Nazi party leaders continued the war effort while searching for a new successor to their dead dictator, Adolf Hitler.
Grounding the story are four protagonists inspired by real-life WWII fighters. IGN has more on each:
- Sgt. Arthur Kingsley (Western Front) is a member of the 9th Parachute Battalion in the British army. His character is based on Sidney Cornell, a paratrooper who played a part in Operation Tonga. For Kingsley, Campaign Creative Director David Swenson explained he has to take charge and successfully help complete the operation in order to make a particular beach safe for D-Day the next morning. Kingsley is voiced by Chike Okonkwo and written by Tochi Onyebuchi.
- Lt. Polina Petrova (Eastern Front) is a member of the Soviet Union’s 138th Rifle Division inspired by Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a sniper nicknamed Lady Death. Petrova’s story starts in her home of Stalingrad where she worked as a nurse and is eventually becomes an ace sniper when her home is invaded by the Germans.
- Cpt. Wade Jackson (Pacific Front) is a pilot of Scouting Squadron Six of the United States Navy. Inspired by the actions of Vernon “Mike” Micheel, Jackson fights in the Pacific Battle of Midway before being shot down over the Solomon Islands and must adapt to fighting on the ground with a team.
- 2nd lt. Lucas Riggs (North Africa) is an Australian infantryman in the 20th Battalion. He’s inspired by Charles Upham and the Rats of Tobruk. Riggs’ fights as one of these Rats of Tobruk in North Africa to take out opposing forces there.
Much emphasis is being put on the single-player campaign, but there will also be multiplayer across 20 maps, 16 6v6 and four 2v2.
Call of Duty: Vanguard drops on November 5 for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.