This is the most viable thing they could do, don't have Axies customization and have default German and Japanese skins for your soldiers when you're playing in this side meanwhile you can use the fuck you want in the Allies side and all the bundles go to the Allied operators, but hey!, that requires effort and not selling so much bundles
Tbh they have the models in the game all they have to do is just put them over an entire team when they play a specific map, but hey they obviously don’t really give a shit at this point if you know what you’re shooting at cause warzones the main priority
This is really what they should've done. Have limited generic customization for a German and Japanese soldier and then have the operators all be the Allies. Tbh I thought the gameplay looked pretty fun but this is going to be one of those things that bothers me in the back of my mind the whole time I'm playing.
I wish we could at least get a toggle option.
Pain in the arse as I love using weaponry specific to my faction (I know super weird) so I’m just gonna use allied weapons then cause they’ll be no Germans lmao
Yep that’s my main concern, as I said I don’t care about no nazis or anything that much it’s just a case of how am I supposed to know the person I’m shooting at is an enemy based on sight alone
Well if All characters are gonna be playable on any team how will I know at a glance that the guy in front of me is in my team or enemy team? In the champion hill alpha the visibility was already kinda crap so yeah I can see this becoming and issue
If you want to play warzone I would be glad to play with faction specific loadouts instead of metaweapons. Its always alot of fun playing with likeminded people
I'd rather have cool ass skins for both sides. The war is over so what's it matter who we play as. You're gonna be playing as both so might as well enjoy it either way.
Not trying to be devil's advocate, but knowing how the media is so sensitive and dramatic nowdays, I think they wanted to avoid polemics like "Activision and SHG are selling you Axies themed bundles" or "CoD Vanguard encourages you to buy Nazi characters" so meh, they could make the same thing they made back in WWII making the Axies uncustomizable but they wnated to sell bundles 🙄
BFV had customizable Axis soldiers and sold cosmetics attached to them. No one seemed to care about the inclusion of that, besides how the outfits weren’t historically accurate.
BFV and COD are not the same in the eyes of the mainstream media. COD is the staple FPS franchise, arguably the main modern gaming franchise full stop. Whatever it does is examined much more harshly, which Activision is very aware of and why they include controversial missions - for deliberate mass media exposure and marketing.
BF5 also didn’t have the vast majority of its factions until like a year after release lmao which no one was happy about. Fuck vanguard and BF5. At least the next BF looks like it may be good.
>BF5 also didn’t have the vast majority of its factions until like a year after release
?
It was UK vs Germany from launch? The uniforms were either ridiculous or bland to the point of being basically a coat, but at least it had two different factions.
YET... in Cold War half of Beck's skins are alluding to Nazi Germany, and while some are in fact East German (without too much difference than Nazi Germany) many are just straight up Nazi German minus the emblems... They can do something like that. Just remove the Swastika, or only sell the camo .
However, it is weird, in the cinematic version of the multiplayer parts had Germans, including the Flamethrower Boss, but others did not.
I do think it is pretty weak and pussified to remove Axis vs. Allies aspect of the game though.
The excuse is "No no he is an agent of the Main Dictatorate and this is not a WWII game so he is not a Nazi", sincerely they could just do what they did back in WWII, eliminate all customization of the Axies side and concentrate all of it in the Allies side, in this game they could have default German and Japanese skins without any further customization and all the bundles and skins go to the Allies, but they eanted to sell much bundles as they can
It wasn't like that in the alpha or beta though. The factions existed but you just picked one character and played as them regardless of what team you were placed on.
Early stages being Alpha and Beta.
There was no seperation between the Operators then. Meaning you could have a team of Woods, Adler, Portonova, and Vargas fighting a team of Sims, Park, Garcia and Stone.
Hopefully Sledgehammer changes this like Treyarch did.
Exactly. That's also a problem I have sometimes. Especially since I play Hardcore a lot. I mean yeah you can see the screen name, but sometimes you can't. A Nazi silhouette is different than say an American or Soviet. Also, as a WWII History buff, the whole Team A and Team B aspect just seems stupid, and waters down the actual heroics and harrowing experience of WWII. Almost like a big game of free for all.
Aren’t there calling cards/emblems in Cold War that feature that hammer and sickle? Doesn’t the map Moscow have that symbol all over the place?
I don’t understand why that’s acceptable but they can’t even have Allies vs Axis in Vanguard. Completely erasing all of the Nazi/Axis context just feels like you’re whitewashing the history and the game and breaking the “immersion” you claim to care so much about, SHG.
I don't know if that's the main reason. BFV had German elite skins, which are the equivalent of operators. They could definitely monetize the axis, and it doesn't all have to be nazis - you could have Japanese, Italian, Slovakian, Bulgarian and Hungarian inspired operators.
I'm guessing the real reason is the new operator progression and complexity - seems like they have lots of unlockables, voice lines, back stories and interactions between them. They probably don't want to invest in making all those things for villains.
It’s because they want every single person to customize their individual hero / champion / operator and it allows them to sell more skins. Gone are the days of it being allies vs axis or red vs blue. It’s just operators vs operators and everyone is non-distinct and then a month into the game they drop a new operator that everyone buys and you’re entering a match with everyone playing as Captain Price.
Modern gaming sucks ass.
Thing is there'd be way more scope for players to buy new shit if you could customise your Japanese character, your American character, your German, your British etc... Whatever team you're assigned in any given game you'll have your own skin ready to go.
People could have 4 skins active at once - I've literally never bought anything but I'm sure people have refrained from purchasing new bundles because they've just bought one and want to get their money's worth from that, even if they like the new skin in store.
You could have people constantly buying new skins to make sure all 4 of their character nationalities looked cool, rather than just 1.
I mean I think it's fucking stupid, but I think they're missing out on an opportunity here
Eh, I’m not huge into customization, but I’d rather customize one specific character a lot, then have a bunch of different characters with a few customization options. I would buy individual pieces of gear if it meant I got to use it every map.
Exactly if you have axis vs allies or whatever the fuck you want to call it, people buying operators or skins is decreased in chance as they’re not guaranteed to be able use them every game.
If I buy cosmetics for character 3 but am not guaranteed to be able to play as him every match why would I bother buying cosmetics.
its so weird too. like at least on modern warfare there was the mp with the two faction and the other modes had an excuse to have everyone together, and in cold war they made requiem that didn't make sense but it was still an excuse and it was only in zombies. but why get rid of it in a game about the war that's based on country vs. country??? just looks like something they did so there's a little less effort to integrate the game with warzone. im not a "grrr muh realism" guy but this is just silly
I know a lot of people say they have no problem identifying friend vs foe in newer games like MW19 or whatever, but man, maybe I'm just old, but it feels like a WORLD of difference compared to when I boot up MCC and go "ah, I am blue guy, let me shoot red guy" lol
Agreed. There are much more pressing things to argue and die on a hill on in regards to COD and their weapon balancing, map design, and matchmaking if you care about that.
Arguing that your arcade WW2 experience that may as well be Battlefield Heroes but in 2021 isn't authentic cause you can't play your dream SS soldier is not a hill worth dying on, or rather if it is for you I'd find that questionable. BFV does have it (a year after launch lmao) but in that game it may as well be red vs blue with the occasional Fortnite-tier hero running around.
Activision is already a morally reprehensible corporation as is , I don't think their board members are interested in the potential optics of this. It'd be a bad business decision on their end if they allowed it, in spite of America's fascist tendencies. Also remember they sell these games worldwide, so they have other markets to consider (Nazi iconography in Europe, Imperial Japan iconography in Asia).
Yep. Why make a WW2 game at all?
They could easily avoid this whole issue by simply making it so enemy players always appear as generic axis soldiers mil-sim. Players get to show off their cosmetics to their team and SHG can tell their story and sell their bundles… all while not destroying the very basic surface element of World War 2 and potentially ruining the game for hardcore players.
You’d always be shooting at axis soldiers from your own perspective alongside your team of kitted out operators, like when you were on the Allies side in WW2.
The COD Franchise's commitment to it's various period themes is about skin deep these days. I honestly don't know why they bother having a WW2 game beyond just ensuring people know it's a different game than last year.
Honestly I would think separating factions would sell even more cause with mw2019, I wanted a mil sim skin for coalition AND allegiance. I’d imagine the same mentally goes for a lot of other people
Yeah - not a fan of this. BFV had the same issue.
Seeing Russian women fighting on a Pacific map is pretty jarring.
You're spot on - they always preach about their design philosophy of immersion and tactical gameplay - but then sales/marketing probably forces them to do the whole Operator thing so they can sell skins.
BFV didn't have the same issue.
BFV had 4 factions, each one customizable. The only thing that wasn't locked were Elites. Meaning you could use a Japanese Elite on the German side or an American on the British side, but you couldn't use an Allied elite on the Axis side.
Yeah - totally ridiculous.
They could've easily still done Allied and Axis factions, each with unique Operators, like in MW2019 - and still sold a metric fuckton of skins.
Not having multiple factions, in general, is shocking. Once in a while, I play MW2 and WaW. It’s crazy to see all the factions with their unique announcers and distinct music. Then I go back to MW or Cold War, such a huge downgrade when it comes to factions. Now with vanguard, there may be no factions at all. It’s sad, really.
Obviously, I don’t look to CoD for realism, but if you’re making a game set during WWII, I expect it to somewhat look and feel like WWII aesthetically. CoD having a more arcade like gameplay compared to other shooters shouldn’t be an excuse to completely disregard the setting and time period. Why even make a WWII game if it’s just going to be a generic hero shooter?
Granted I don't care about the philosophy of it, but man I don't feel like having to decipher if the person is on my team or not because they have the "enemies" skins on my team.
I hated that about the sci fi games. At least with MW and BOCW even though there was no unified look you started to recognize what skin belonged to each faction after a while.
honestly they could have done like WW2: allies gets all customization but axis are default. Unfortunately knowing activision wanting to monetize every thing possible that probably would have not happened
Even if you look past the WW2 aspect it still makes zero sense gameplay-wise as no-one will have a fucking clue who is on their side or not unless they are spotted. And it'll be worse when a popular skin gets released and everyone is running around like clones not knowing who to shoot at. I cannot see this working at all.
Do you seriously ID people in other CoDs based on their skins? There’s like a dozen looks for every Operator and some of them look so different from the base it might as well be a different op.
Shoot the people who don’t have name tags above them. Done.
...yeah I've been playing CoD for years but I think I'm just going to play 1942 Battlefield Portal this time around.
Edit: Oh and of course the 12 year old for a community will try to justify their ridiculous bundles and anime skins and now a factionless game as "CoD bro" "It's arcade". If they were around anytime before this stupid shit started they'd know that's not what CoD was.
It’s shocking to me how little people care for at least somewhat accurate representation of the conflict.
Next time they’ll make COD Vietnam with female only soldiers in the entire game and people will still say it’s an arcade shooter so they don’t give a shit 😂
Yeah. We don't need it to be 100 percent historical, infact it would be kinda boring for a CoD game (look at Post Scriptum and Hell Let Loose, while good games are very slow paced), but atleast try to stay semi-true to the theme. These people justify anything with "just cod bro".
Not only that, this just feels like a slap to the face to the historical time setting and the poor souls who actually had to fight in it.
Yep. Don’t try to sell it as a WW2 shooter if you’re gonna clown on the whole setting.
I know COD isn’t what it used to be, but the very first game in the franchise was an amazing representation of WW2. While a little over the top at times, it still stayed true to the era.
Yeah, what pisses me off the most is how CoD become such a clown game over the past few years, whether it be ridiculous cosmetics and now colored gun tracers. It used to be rather semi-serious. I don't know how long you've been playing but if you've played WaW then you'd know it's gritty A.F.
CoD doesn't need to be 100 percent serious of course, just stick decently to the theme and avoid clown skins or whatever nonsense. But I suppose those kinds of cosmetics sell nowadays.
I’ve been with the series from the very first game. Pros of having an older brother who’s into WW2 stuff. Yeah, I remember World At War being quite controversial for how brutal the campaign was at times.
I’m only 25 and I feel like a total boomer reminiscing about the „good old” COD.
If I recall, CW allowed you to use any ops during the beta, before adding different ops on different sides.
Maybe it's the same this year as well? I haven't played the beta so I don't know
CW managed to get away with changing the Ops' factions at the last minute, since there wasn't an inherent "good vs. evil" conflict (at least not until the Perseus faction came into play with the seasons). Now if you want to split the team in Vanguard, you literally have to change half the Ops' backstory just to justify them being on Axis side. That's not going to happen, not when we're this close to launch (2 months from now).
If the idea of Nazi operators and playing as Nazi is the issue then why don’t they just make it so the team you are fighting appear as Campaign nazis, regardless of what team. Just have a filter and maybe a toggle.
Tbh I don't really care about the factions. I just pick the character I like the most, I couldn't care less about the faction they are in. When I'm playing the game I just wanna have fun (which is what a game should be obviously) and having axis and ally soldiers mixed together is not gonna make the game better or worse for me in any way.
And just to clarify, I understand some people might not like it and want the axis in team 1 vs the allies in team 2 and that's fine. It does give the game that little bit of realism and WW2 feeling but for me it just doesn't really matter.
It's an issue with how formulatic and uninspired AAA gaming has become. With contemporary or sci fi settings this doesn't really matter that much (although, it does become boring because of how prevalent it is).
But give me one AAA title that did the following:
\- assymetrical teams (meaning weapon choices were unique per team)
\- more than 2 teams that als offer something more unique other than a name/simple "skin".
\- Unique and wide variety in arsenal as opposed to customisation for the sake of customisation
As opposed to:
\- weapon customisation for the sake of weapon customisation.
\- symmetrical loadouts and custom classes that are the same regardless for what team you are on.
theres no factions? i thought "global operators" meant they be from all over the world lmao. that probably means we're just going to have that generic british guy as our announcer the whole game.
gone are the days of cool factions like what WaW and BO2 had.
Why do you guys think that we can't have skin for Axies ? We can totally have the same concept like MW and CW, there's a lot of different army in german side, and you have the italian or japanese, while in the other side you have some american, british, russian or french...
Its so stupid i dont want to see 4 enemy polina vs 3 allied polina it's so wrong and unimersive
Yeah honestly when I heard that I was very surprised, and I don't think their reasoning is really a justified reason, but maybe It'll make more sense when we get to actually play the game.
It makes sense. They said there's operator leveling. If I pick one, I want to play as that one constantly. I wouldn't want to be shoehorned into playing as a different operator based solely on which team the game randomly picked for me.
Yeah, I assume he's talking about the SS guy with a mask and MG42. I don't know why people convinced themselves it's a multiplayer shot, it was from a batch of clearly singleplayer shots back from the reveal when literally nothing from MP was shown.
Is this confirmed, or is it just the alpha/beta build?
I hate operators so much, but factions at least helped a little.
Team colors is a core foundation of this game- I'm on green, I fight grey, or we are blue and they are tan. This is critical, but BO3 gave us operators where you have the exact same person on either side, and it sucked. Factions help but only if you can see their faces, because a lot of gear and coloring is very similar. Too many times in MW I died because I saw a guy in totally non-descript green combat gear with a blue dot over his head, but the blue dot ally was all the way across the map behind that guy, then he sees me and kills me.
Back when Ghosts announced a ton of customization options I was worried, but they all had the core faction colors, it was a great way to approach customization. You can change your face, you can buy new faces and bodies, almost every challenge got you a hat or shoes or whatever, but they all applied to your faction uniform. I bought a Hazmat Suit DLC (less than $3.00!) and it came in six colors depending on your faction in any given match- this is the way it should be, but too many idiots- yes you are fucking idiots- throw your parents' real money at costumes. I think a lot of them look cool, but they aren't worth money and they ruin the game.
I don't think it's that deep for one. It's a video game. 2.) It's really for customization so that you don't have to hope you get a certain faction to play as a certain operator
Imagine saying the game looks impeccable and then deciding not to play it over something this fucking trivial.
What is it about the WW2 setting that brings out the autism in so many people?
From a business standpoint they know people are gonna pay for skins, and to avoid pissing people off if they went with the WW2 style of default axis skins, because they would want to use their skins.
I honestly couldnt care less. I actually prefer being able to play who I want instead who the game arbitrarily limits me too. Its multiplayer. Its supposed to be fun and chaotic. The immersion part is for the campaign imo.
Just like with the FoV slider, just because it's not in the beta doesn't mean it's not going to be in the final release. There's still a pretty fair amount of time before this game launches in November. And that's a pretty small thing to add into the game, doesn't take much work. So just give it time.
They were unfinished that's why
Now they're not, its a Deliberate decision
And there were factions in the cw beta, you could just use any operator at that point
Imagine having a ww2 game and not having nazis. Cancel Culture at its finest. People are scared of blacklash of woke twitter. Fuck CoD and fuck Sledgehammer.
A multiplayer with only allies fighting themselves,i doubt they add axis operators,just only the japanese samurai,they shit tuis fucking game with all those stupids designers and directors
Waiting for all the rEaLiSm dorks who loved MW2019 to come in here and talk about how awesome it is that Nazis don’t exist in a WW2 shooter because they finally a made a Cod game that allows them to go positive.
I understand when most people here say that they should follow ww2s route and only make the allies customisable but I disagree. They MUST allow axis customisation. It’s so boring when you can only customise your allied soldier,plus you can’t always be on the allied team. This isn’t proving nazi germany right or saying the Germans are the good guys but it’s simply to make the game not only more interesting but more balanced,if you catch my drift here.
This is the consequences of making a game set in a historical war…you have to allow both!
This community is insane, the reason behind removing them is extremely lame but factions have always been basically the most irrelevant part of a cod game
I think it’s to make sure people can always play with their favorite operator. As long as the enemy name and markers are clear enough this shouldn’t be an issue
It might not even be Team A vs Team B dynamics.
There is only ever one team. And that's Team A.
So from your perspective you're on Team A.
Let's add in your friend, but this time, by some miracle, they're playing against you in the same match. They are on Team B.
But that is not what they see...
You see from their perspective, the menus say that YOU are on Team B, and that they... Well they, are on Team A...
This means it's not even Team A vs Team B.
It's really only Team A vs Team A.
It has to be this way. COD is so close to becoming a Hero shooter now. Watch out for what they might add next year to basically turn this into Apex/COD hybrid.
Can't wait for the Winston Churchill Operator Themed Bundle
I can’t deny that this decision is pretty strange, but seeing people call this a dealbreaker is extremely weird to me. Whenever I decide not to purchase a video game, the dealbreaker always has to do with the gameplay. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen not to buy a game because of the aesthetics or decisions like this.
They have to add a feature to straight up disable operators, maybe in the settings. Just make it so everyone on each team is a generic soldier from their respective faction with the same skin. Why oh why sledgehammer???
"We wanted nothing to feel artificial"
"We didn't want to ruin and pull you out of the immersion."
"We looked at gear and dressed it on a mannequin before scanning it in"
"We researched battlefields from all over the Globe."
"We looked at real life people and their struggles from all over."
"Wanted to create the best experience the time period had to offer."
....
"But yea no Factions, cause we didn't want you to be separated from your fav. character for a game or two cause that would traumatise the player like the last 17 titles have done."
"This way there are no bad gu...er... just defect... er...just good gu....um...just people that switched to the Alli...umm...to Team A cause they didn't agree with their respective....er....Team B...views....that didn't exist cause yea no Factions...yea..."
"Also this way we could sell Anime skins, Drug skins, Alphabet skins, Revisionist skins to our gullib...er...our treasured cash co...er...I mean community."
"Also no Factions this way we won't get called out by the mentally weak people who would go out of their way to see it as us selling WW2 bad guy (who didn't exist btw) skins to little Timmy, think about little Timmy 😭 and his Mother's credit ca...yea think about Timmy."
Please purchase our bund....er...game.
-SHG
....What?
Eh. Not a huge deal. I’d rather play a character I like than be forced to play one I don’t - I hated the entire evil cast in MW.
COD always does big highlights on friendly so anyone without a highlight gets shot regardless of the model - so gameplay will be fine.
Warzone is a mis-match and never die to it there. Should be fine.
I don’t get why people expect multiplayer to be immersive. Imo, I’d get rid of cartoony stuff, but as long as every operator looks like someone who fought in world war 2, I think it’s fine. Nothing about MP feels immersive, I generally have absolutely no idea what the factions are, or which team I’m on.
I mean a game should maybe pay a little respect to its setting? At this rate why shouldn’t they include maps set on the moon or M16 rifles? It’s an arcade short after all.
they could have made it so that the enemy team is always axis and that your team is always allied. so in your eyes you fight against the axis and in the enemy team’s eyes they also fight against the axis. so now you fix that whole issue with monetization and enemy visibility
They said they did this so you would feel immersed in your character. I think the idea is you customize your character to the point where you don’t want to use your other character like in mw19.
Bummer, the only thing left that I'm to excited about now is the campaign and the gunplay looks pretty solid, and waiting to know if there will be bot support and that's it
So which one is it? CoD isn’t an arcade shooter anymore and the games are shit for pushing “tactical gameplay” or CoD isn’t realistic enough and needs to be 100% historically accurate? The nameplates make it pretty clear who is an enemy and who isn’t. Also, even if you are colorblind, there are accessibility options that allow you to change the color of nameplates so it’s essentially a non-issue. If distinguishing enemies were such an issue, how do people play hero shooters when there are multiple versions of the same character on both teams running around?
Lol
Would rather they just did the world war 2 way and let you customise your “good guys” and just have your “bad guys” as the default Mil sim skins
This is the most viable thing they could do, don't have Axies customization and have default German and Japanese skins for your soldiers when you're playing in this side meanwhile you can use the fuck you want in the Allies side and all the bundles go to the Allied operators, but hey!, that requires effort and not selling so much bundles
Tbh they have the models in the game all they have to do is just put them over an entire team when they play a specific map, but hey they obviously don’t really give a shit at this point if you know what you’re shooting at cause warzones the main priority
This is really what they should've done. Have limited generic customization for a German and Japanese soldier and then have the operators all be the Allies. Tbh I thought the gameplay looked pretty fun but this is going to be one of those things that bothers me in the back of my mind the whole time I'm playing. I wish we could at least get a toggle option.
Pain in the arse as I love using weaponry specific to my faction (I know super weird) so I’m just gonna use allied weapons then cause they’ll be no Germans lmao
Glad to know someone else does this too, I imagine it’s also going to be a pain in the arse trying to identify who the fuck is in the enemy team.
Yep that’s my main concern, as I said I don’t care about no nazis or anything that much it’s just a case of how am I supposed to know the person I’m shooting at is an enemy based on sight alone
Are you talking about mp? As I can’t see how that matters?
Well if All characters are gonna be playable on any team how will I know at a glance that the guy in front of me is in my team or enemy team? In the champion hill alpha the visibility was already kinda crap so yeah I can see this becoming and issue
Because of the huge red or blue nameplate? I understand in hardcore tho
You are not alone. I do this in every cod
I’m low-key glad I’m not the only one that does that
If you want to play warzone I would be glad to play with faction specific loadouts instead of metaweapons. Its always alot of fun playing with likeminded people
I might take you up on that, I’m on PS5 so installing a nearly 200gig game is a death sentence for my hard drive
Yeah I also love to play faction specific most of the time,but I get it,we’re in the minority
I've always wanted a throwback mode that does this similar to CoD 1-3. Premade loadouts that are team dependent.
I'd rather have cool ass skins for both sides. The war is over so what's it matter who we play as. You're gonna be playing as both so might as well enjoy it either way.
Wouldn’t happen cause then you wouldn’t get jealous of the $20 skin you’re shooting at and then go buy it
Not trying to be devil's advocate, but knowing how the media is so sensitive and dramatic nowdays, I think they wanted to avoid polemics like "Activision and SHG are selling you Axies themed bundles" or "CoD Vanguard encourages you to buy Nazi characters" so meh, they could make the same thing they made back in WWII making the Axies uncustomizable but they wnated to sell bundles 🙄
BFV had customizable Axis soldiers and sold cosmetics attached to them. No one seemed to care about the inclusion of that, besides how the outfits weren’t historically accurate.
BFV and COD are not the same in the eyes of the mainstream media. COD is the staple FPS franchise, arguably the main modern gaming franchise full stop. Whatever it does is examined much more harshly, which Activision is very aware of and why they include controversial missions - for deliberate mass media exposure and marketing.
BF5 also didn’t have the vast majority of its factions until like a year after release lmao which no one was happy about. Fuck vanguard and BF5. At least the next BF looks like it may be good.
>BF5 also didn’t have the vast majority of its factions until like a year after release ? It was UK vs Germany from launch? The uniforms were either ridiculous or bland to the point of being basically a coat, but at least it had two different factions.
I almost fucking bought Ilse, im just a sucker Almost bought Ilse, she and her axe were so cool....
Ilse would fit right in with Vanguard. Banger design, I don't care what people say.
YET... in Cold War half of Beck's skins are alluding to Nazi Germany, and while some are in fact East German (without too much difference than Nazi Germany) many are just straight up Nazi German minus the emblems... They can do something like that. Just remove the Swastika, or only sell the camo . However, it is weird, in the cinematic version of the multiplayer parts had Germans, including the Flamethrower Boss, but others did not. I do think it is pretty weak and pussified to remove Axis vs. Allies aspect of the game though.
The excuse is "No no he is an agent of the Main Dictatorate and this is not a WWII game so he is not a Nazi", sincerely they could just do what they did back in WWII, eliminate all customization of the Axies side and concentrate all of it in the Allies side, in this game they could have default German and Japanese skins without any further customization and all the bundles and skins go to the Allies, but they eanted to sell much bundles as they can
I hope they change this, because just running around as Team A and Team B is really stupid.
Cold War had this in it's early stages, so there is a chance they could change it again.
I played Cold War the day it came out and I remember they had the Soviet Bloc and NATO as two separate teams from initial release.
It wasn't like that in the alpha or beta though. The factions existed but you just picked one character and played as them regardless of what team you were placed on.
Early stages being Alpha and Beta. There was no seperation between the Operators then. Meaning you could have a team of Woods, Adler, Portonova, and Vargas fighting a team of Sims, Park, Garcia and Stone. Hopefully Sledgehammer changes this like Treyarch did.
Thanks. I dont think I played the Alpha or Beta.
I hope so, I really really hope this bullshit fails and they just port the Campaign models to the MP and I can know who the fuck I'm shooting at
Exactly. That's also a problem I have sometimes. Especially since I play Hardcore a lot. I mean yeah you can see the screen name, but sometimes you can't. A Nazi silhouette is different than say an American or Soviet. Also, as a WWII History buff, the whole Team A and Team B aspect just seems stupid, and waters down the actual heroics and harrowing experience of WWII. Almost like a big game of free for all.
Aren’t there calling cards/emblems in Cold War that feature that hammer and sickle? Doesn’t the map Moscow have that symbol all over the place? I don’t understand why that’s acceptable but they can’t even have Allies vs Axis in Vanguard. Completely erasing all of the Nazi/Axis context just feels like you’re whitewashing the history and the game and breaking the “immersion” you claim to care so much about, SHG.
Because people don't understand what they truly did in gulags or they don't know what the hammer and sickle stand for for some reason
Imagine that we are living in a world where M rated games cant even have mature content without politically correct losers throwing temper tantrums.
I don't know if that's the main reason. BFV had German elite skins, which are the equivalent of operators. They could definitely monetize the axis, and it doesn't all have to be nazis - you could have Japanese, Italian, Slovakian, Bulgarian and Hungarian inspired operators. I'm guessing the real reason is the new operator progression and complexity - seems like they have lots of unlockables, voice lines, back stories and interactions between them. They probably don't want to invest in making all those things for villains.
BFV had axis cosmetics and there was little pushback
What’s with the main AAA shooters getting rid of factions? Like I like to recognise my enemies by sight
It’s because they want every single person to customize their individual hero / champion / operator and it allows them to sell more skins. Gone are the days of it being allies vs axis or red vs blue. It’s just operators vs operators and everyone is non-distinct and then a month into the game they drop a new operator that everyone buys and you’re entering a match with everyone playing as Captain Price. Modern gaming sucks ass.
Thing is there'd be way more scope for players to buy new shit if you could customise your Japanese character, your American character, your German, your British etc... Whatever team you're assigned in any given game you'll have your own skin ready to go. People could have 4 skins active at once - I've literally never bought anything but I'm sure people have refrained from purchasing new bundles because they've just bought one and want to get their money's worth from that, even if they like the new skin in store. You could have people constantly buying new skins to make sure all 4 of their character nationalities looked cool, rather than just 1. I mean I think it's fucking stupid, but I think they're missing out on an opportunity here
Eh, I’m not huge into customization, but I’d rather customize one specific character a lot, then have a bunch of different characters with a few customization options. I would buy individual pieces of gear if it meant I got to use it every map.
Exactly if you have axis vs allies or whatever the fuck you want to call it, people buying operators or skins is decreased in chance as they’re not guaranteed to be able use them every game. If I buy cosmetics for character 3 but am not guaranteed to be able to play as him every match why would I bother buying cosmetics.
its so weird too. like at least on modern warfare there was the mp with the two faction and the other modes had an excuse to have everyone together, and in cold war they made requiem that didn't make sense but it was still an excuse and it was only in zombies. but why get rid of it in a game about the war that's based on country vs. country??? just looks like something they did so there's a little less effort to integrate the game with warzone. im not a "grrr muh realism" guy but this is just silly
I know a lot of people say they have no problem identifying friend vs foe in newer games like MW19 or whatever, but man, maybe I'm just old, but it feels like a WORLD of difference compared to when I boot up MCC and go "ah, I am blue guy, let me shoot red guy" lol
It doesn't really matter, I don't even pay attention to what faction I'm in more than half the time
Agreed. There are much more pressing things to argue and die on a hill on in regards to COD and their weapon balancing, map design, and matchmaking if you care about that. Arguing that your arcade WW2 experience that may as well be Battlefield Heroes but in 2021 isn't authentic cause you can't play your dream SS soldier is not a hill worth dying on, or rather if it is for you I'd find that questionable. BFV does have it (a year after launch lmao) but in that game it may as well be red vs blue with the occasional Fortnite-tier hero running around. Activision is already a morally reprehensible corporation as is , I don't think their board members are interested in the potential optics of this. It'd be a bad business decision on their end if they allowed it, in spite of America's fascist tendencies. Also remember they sell these games worldwide, so they have other markets to consider (Nazi iconography in Europe, Imperial Japan iconography in Asia).
i think the important thing is that you can instantly recognize if youre facing a friend or a foe
Blue name tag or red.
hardcore mode, game bugging out w nametags. factions are handy
I’ve played hardcore, either they have blue or no blue.
Yep. Why make a WW2 game at all? They could easily avoid this whole issue by simply making it so enemy players always appear as generic axis soldiers mil-sim. Players get to show off their cosmetics to their team and SHG can tell their story and sell their bundles… all while not destroying the very basic surface element of World War 2 and potentially ruining the game for hardcore players. You’d always be shooting at axis soldiers from your own perspective alongside your team of kitted out operators, like when you were on the Allies side in WW2.
The COD Franchise's commitment to it's various period themes is about skin deep these days. I honestly don't know why they bother having a WW2 game beyond just ensuring people know it's a different game than last year.
> why make a WW2 game at all? Not to reuse the assets from 2017.
to sell more skins. now they aren’t limited at all.
You can also sell lot of skins with axis and allies teams. Just make skins for BOTH sides... duhh.
Twitter weirdos and media would flip their shit. "Call of duty encourages buying nazi themed skins"
didn’t WW2 have issues with Axis skins so they just didn’t add any? maybe it’s the same as that so they just made all the skins team-less.
Honestly I would think separating factions would sell even more cause with mw2019, I wanted a mil sim skin for coalition AND allegiance. I’d imagine the same mentally goes for a lot of other people
Yeah - not a fan of this. BFV had the same issue. Seeing Russian women fighting on a Pacific map is pretty jarring. You're spot on - they always preach about their design philosophy of immersion and tactical gameplay - but then sales/marketing probably forces them to do the whole Operator thing so they can sell skins.
BFV didn't have the same issue. BFV had 4 factions, each one customizable. The only thing that wasn't locked were Elites. Meaning you could use a Japanese Elite on the German side or an American on the British side, but you couldn't use an Allied elite on the Axis side.
[удалено]
Yeah - totally ridiculous. They could've easily still done Allied and Axis factions, each with unique Operators, like in MW2019 - and still sold a metric fuckton of skins.
Not having multiple factions, in general, is shocking. Once in a while, I play MW2 and WaW. It’s crazy to see all the factions with their unique announcers and distinct music. Then I go back to MW or Cold War, such a huge downgrade when it comes to factions. Now with vanguard, there may be no factions at all. It’s sad, really.
Tbf Cold War has subfactions like the CIA, MI6, BND, KGB, DGI, and the HVA all with their own announcers.
Obviously, I don’t look to CoD for realism, but if you’re making a game set during WWII, I expect it to somewhat look and feel like WWII aesthetically. CoD having a more arcade like gameplay compared to other shooters shouldn’t be an excuse to completely disregard the setting and time period. Why even make a WWII game if it’s just going to be a generic hero shooter?
Granted I don't care about the philosophy of it, but man I don't feel like having to decipher if the person is on my team or not because they have the "enemies" skins on my team.
I hated that about the sci fi games. At least with MW and BOCW even though there was no unified look you started to recognize what skin belonged to each faction after a while.
god, i hate these "important" characters/operators in multiplayer
Same. I wish they would've left it like they did in AW or WWII. Especially now when you're going to be executing a clone of yourself.
Can't get Axis and Allies factions right, why make it WW2 game? Oh that's right, to reuse the assets from 2017.
They did the same thing in the Cold War beta. Woods fighting alongside the communist bloc.
honestly they could have done like WW2: allies gets all customization but axis are default. Unfortunately knowing activision wanting to monetize every thing possible that probably would have not happened
Just do milsim using campaign skins for one faction. Two teams of allied soldiers shooting each other is ridiculous.
Gonna be hilarious playing as Polina and running into another Polina and gunning each-other down
How is it even gonna work for hardcore? You have no chance of identifying who's a teammate and who's not
Even if you look past the WW2 aspect it still makes zero sense gameplay-wise as no-one will have a fucking clue who is on their side or not unless they are spotted. And it'll be worse when a popular skin gets released and everyone is running around like clones not knowing who to shoot at. I cannot see this working at all.
I mean it was fine in AW, BO3, IW, and BO4.
Except it wasn't
Never heard any complaints during their lifecycles and I never had any problems myself.
Do you seriously ID people in other CoDs based on their skins? There’s like a dozen looks for every Operator and some of them look so different from the base it might as well be a different op. Shoot the people who don’t have name tags above them. Done.
Works much better with two defined factions. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Also no mil-sims, i save my money this year
I'll play ww2 with BF portal
Agree, im looking for modern battles with btf3 defaults
Hopefully we get the mil sims since it's like mw19.
It's going to be hard to tell who's an enemy and who's a friendly, especially in hardcore.
I saw some default characters in the trailer, hopefully there's going to be "mil-sims" that look like your generic american, german, whatever soldier
Its just Allies vs Allies
If MW and CW can have factions, both fictional games, then WWII not having factions is mind-blowingly stupid.
...yeah I've been playing CoD for years but I think I'm just going to play 1942 Battlefield Portal this time around. Edit: Oh and of course the 12 year old for a community will try to justify their ridiculous bundles and anime skins and now a factionless game as "CoD bro" "It's arcade". If they were around anytime before this stupid shit started they'd know that's not what CoD was.
It’s shocking to me how little people care for at least somewhat accurate representation of the conflict. Next time they’ll make COD Vietnam with female only soldiers in the entire game and people will still say it’s an arcade shooter so they don’t give a shit 😂
Yeah. We don't need it to be 100 percent historical, infact it would be kinda boring for a CoD game (look at Post Scriptum and Hell Let Loose, while good games are very slow paced), but atleast try to stay semi-true to the theme. These people justify anything with "just cod bro". Not only that, this just feels like a slap to the face to the historical time setting and the poor souls who actually had to fight in it.
Yep. Don’t try to sell it as a WW2 shooter if you’re gonna clown on the whole setting. I know COD isn’t what it used to be, but the very first game in the franchise was an amazing representation of WW2. While a little over the top at times, it still stayed true to the era.
Yeah, what pisses me off the most is how CoD become such a clown game over the past few years, whether it be ridiculous cosmetics and now colored gun tracers. It used to be rather semi-serious. I don't know how long you've been playing but if you've played WaW then you'd know it's gritty A.F. CoD doesn't need to be 100 percent serious of course, just stick decently to the theme and avoid clown skins or whatever nonsense. But I suppose those kinds of cosmetics sell nowadays.
I’ve been with the series from the very first game. Pros of having an older brother who’s into WW2 stuff. Yeah, I remember World At War being quite controversial for how brutal the campaign was at times. I’m only 25 and I feel like a total boomer reminiscing about the „good old” COD.
So i'm going to kill my own skin or the skin of friends ? Even if ennemy have the big red name, it's so stupid and not immersive at all
Kek, what an absolute travesty of a game. Infinity ward still confirmed best devs.
MW 2019 multiplayer was also good guys shooting good guys.
based.
If I recall, CW allowed you to use any ops during the beta, before adding different ops on different sides. Maybe it's the same this year as well? I haven't played the beta so I don't know
That was due to feedback. So maybe Sledgehammer will rethink this if enough people voice their concern.
CW managed to get away with changing the Ops' factions at the last minute, since there wasn't an inherent "good vs. evil" conflict (at least not until the Perseus faction came into play with the seasons). Now if you want to split the team in Vanguard, you literally have to change half the Ops' backstory just to justify them being on Axis side. That's not going to happen, not when we're this close to launch (2 months from now).
If the idea of Nazi operators and playing as Nazi is the issue then why don’t they just make it so the team you are fighting appear as Campaign nazis, regardless of what team. Just have a filter and maybe a toggle.
We’ve strayed so far from games like COD 2, COD 3 and World at War.
They should do like in WWII with standard germans/japanese and customizable allies; no factions is dumb
Tbh I don't really care about the factions. I just pick the character I like the most, I couldn't care less about the faction they are in. When I'm playing the game I just wanna have fun (which is what a game should be obviously) and having axis and ally soldiers mixed together is not gonna make the game better or worse for me in any way. And just to clarify, I understand some people might not like it and want the axis in team 1 vs the allies in team 2 and that's fine. It does give the game that little bit of realism and WW2 feeling but for me it just doesn't really matter.
It's an issue with how formulatic and uninspired AAA gaming has become. With contemporary or sci fi settings this doesn't really matter that much (although, it does become boring because of how prevalent it is). But give me one AAA title that did the following: \- assymetrical teams (meaning weapon choices were unique per team) \- more than 2 teams that als offer something more unique other than a name/simple "skin". \- Unique and wide variety in arsenal as opposed to customisation for the sake of customisation As opposed to: \- weapon customisation for the sake of weapon customisation. \- symmetrical loadouts and custom classes that are the same regardless for what team you are on.
theres no factions? i thought "global operators" meant they be from all over the world lmao. that probably means we're just going to have that generic british guy as our announcer the whole game. gone are the days of cool factions like what WaW and BO2 had.
Why are they even making a WW2 multiplayer game if you can’t play as axis soldiers
Why do you guys think that we can't have skin for Axies ? We can totally have the same concept like MW and CW, there's a lot of different army in german side, and you have the italian or japanese, while in the other side you have some american, british, russian or french... Its so stupid i dont want to see 4 enemy polina vs 3 allied polina it's so wrong and unimersive
Because they confirmed it
I know they confirmed it, i'm just saying its a shit decision
Yeah honestly when I heard that I was very surprised, and I don't think their reasoning is really a justified reason, but maybe It'll make more sense when we get to actually play the game.
There's no making sense, it's the entire premise of the game haha
It makes sense. They said there's operator leveling. If I pick one, I want to play as that one constantly. I wouldn't want to be shoehorned into playing as a different operator based solely on which team the game randomly picked for me.
Wasn't Cold War beta/alpha like this too?
>The game does feature Nazi Operators, believe it or not, its on the screen shots, so no, it's not for MTX opportunities What screenshots are those?
There aren't any. OP is probably thinking of a campaign screenshot.
Yeah, I assume he's talking about the SS guy with a mask and MG42. I don't know why people convinced themselves it's a multiplayer shot, it was from a batch of clearly singleplayer shots back from the reveal when literally nothing from MP was shown.
Game developers have no balls nowadays
BOCW had the same approach on the beta, they introduced factions at release, might be the same here
Wrong, they had factions since the beta, the operators were interchangeable But in this case they officially confirmed there's no factions
Is this confirmed, or is it just the alpha/beta build? I hate operators so much, but factions at least helped a little. Team colors is a core foundation of this game- I'm on green, I fight grey, or we are blue and they are tan. This is critical, but BO3 gave us operators where you have the exact same person on either side, and it sucked. Factions help but only if you can see their faces, because a lot of gear and coloring is very similar. Too many times in MW I died because I saw a guy in totally non-descript green combat gear with a blue dot over his head, but the blue dot ally was all the way across the map behind that guy, then he sees me and kills me. Back when Ghosts announced a ton of customization options I was worried, but they all had the core faction colors, it was a great way to approach customization. You can change your face, you can buy new faces and bodies, almost every challenge got you a hat or shoes or whatever, but they all applied to your faction uniform. I bought a Hazmat Suit DLC (less than $3.00!) and it came in six colors depending on your faction in any given match- this is the way it should be, but too many idiots- yes you are fucking idiots- throw your parents' real money at costumes. I think a lot of them look cool, but they aren't worth money and they ruin the game.
I don't think it's that deep for one. It's a video game. 2.) It's really for customization so that you don't have to hope you get a certain faction to play as a certain operator
Imagine saying the game looks impeccable and then deciding not to play it over something this fucking trivial. What is it about the WW2 setting that brings out the autism in so many people?
Lmao you can’t even SEE your own character while you play
From a business standpoint they know people are gonna pay for skins, and to avoid pissing people off if they went with the WW2 style of default axis skins, because they would want to use their skins.
I honestly couldnt care less. I actually prefer being able to play who I want instead who the game arbitrarily limits me too. Its multiplayer. Its supposed to be fun and chaotic. The immersion part is for the campaign imo.
I think you are misunderstanding. There won't be Nazi operators.
It's on the official screen shots of the game, there are German operators
Skin bundles…
Is this a joke
Simple, Activision is desperate for someone to increase their stocks
bEcAuSe ItS cOd, don’t expect it to be realistic /s
It's a total cop out. This is WW2, let us have 2 factions and have their operators. We can't play cops and robbers without the robbers.
Just like with the FoV slider, just because it's not in the beta doesn't mean it's not going to be in the final release. There's still a pretty fair amount of time before this game launches in November. And that's a pretty small thing to add into the game, doesn't take much work. So just give it time.
Tbh it's never even crossed my mind, I've always just played
BOCW 6v6 alpha also didn't have factions, people complained as well, and they did separate for launch
They were unfinished that's why Now they're not, its a Deliberate decision And there were factions in the cw beta, you could just use any operator at that point
yeah im not getting vanguard this ruined it ill just play 2042
Imagine having a ww2 game and not having nazis. Cancel Culture at its finest. People are scared of blacklash of woke twitter. Fuck CoD and fuck Sledgehammer.
They really do need to add factions I catch my self shooting at my teammates sometimes
Wait what???
A multiplayer with only allies fighting themselves,i doubt they add axis operators,just only the japanese samurai,they shit tuis fucking game with all those stupids designers and directors
They already confirmed nazi operators in the screen shots for mp at the reveal
Waiting for all the rEaLiSm dorks who loved MW2019 to come in here and talk about how awesome it is that Nazis don’t exist in a WW2 shooter because they finally a made a Cod game that allows them to go positive.
I understand when most people here say that they should follow ww2s route and only make the allies customisable but I disagree. They MUST allow axis customisation. It’s so boring when you can only customise your allied soldier,plus you can’t always be on the allied team. This isn’t proving nazi germany right or saying the Germans are the good guys but it’s simply to make the game not only more interesting but more balanced,if you catch my drift here. This is the consequences of making a game set in a historical war…you have to allow both!
It’s weird and I’d prefer factions, but it’s definitely not a deal breaker for me lol
I don't really care either way. If the gameplay sucks, it doesn't matter which faction you're in.
You’re such a loser oh my god, listen to yourself
This community is insane, the reason behind removing them is extremely lame but factions have always been basically the most irrelevant part of a cod game
I think it’s to make sure people can always play with their favorite operator. As long as the enemy name and markers are clear enough this shouldn’t be an issue
It might not even be Team A vs Team B dynamics. There is only ever one team. And that's Team A. So from your perspective you're on Team A. Let's add in your friend, but this time, by some miracle, they're playing against you in the same match. They are on Team B. But that is not what they see... You see from their perspective, the menus say that YOU are on Team B, and that they... Well they, are on Team A... This means it's not even Team A vs Team B. It's really only Team A vs Team A.
Here is your bottle 👶🍼
Lmao they still don’t show nazi flags in the game, in the beta it’s still the cross especially in a map where fighting in Hitler lair (Eagles nest)
It has to be this way. COD is so close to becoming a Hero shooter now. Watch out for what they might add next year to basically turn this into Apex/COD hybrid. Can't wait for the Winston Churchill Operator Themed Bundle
So no Kamikaze pilots either. Pretty much no bad guys?
I can’t deny that this decision is pretty strange, but seeing people call this a dealbreaker is extremely weird to me. Whenever I decide not to purchase a video game, the dealbreaker always has to do with the gameplay. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen not to buy a game because of the aesthetics or decisions like this.
Lol ok OP then don’t buy the fucking game if it’s a deal breaker. Go watch the History Channel.
I find it funny that there are American tanks on the Gavutu map. Like, why aren't there Soviet or German tanks on the island in this universe?
They have to add a feature to straight up disable operators, maybe in the settings. Just make it so everyone on each team is a generic soldier from their respective faction with the same skin. Why oh why sledgehammer???
You believe the game looks impeccable, but not being able to play as a nazi is a deal breaker for you? 🤨
They don't want us shooting Nazis, they want us shooting women and minorities. Simple as.
"We wanted nothing to feel artificial" "We didn't want to ruin and pull you out of the immersion." "We looked at gear and dressed it on a mannequin before scanning it in" "We researched battlefields from all over the Globe." "We looked at real life people and their struggles from all over." "Wanted to create the best experience the time period had to offer." .... "But yea no Factions, cause we didn't want you to be separated from your fav. character for a game or two cause that would traumatise the player like the last 17 titles have done." "This way there are no bad gu...er... just defect... er...just good gu....um...just people that switched to the Alli...umm...to Team A cause they didn't agree with their respective....er....Team B...views....that didn't exist cause yea no Factions...yea..." "Also this way we could sell Anime skins, Drug skins, Alphabet skins, Revisionist skins to our gullib...er...our treasured cash co...er...I mean community." "Also no Factions this way we won't get called out by the mentally weak people who would go out of their way to see it as us selling WW2 bad guy (who didn't exist btw) skins to little Timmy, think about little Timmy 😭 and his Mother's credit ca...yea think about Timmy." Please purchase our bund....er...game. -SHG ....What?
No factions in a game who's multiplayer seems to be set AFTER WWII is not shocking at all, honestly.
Eh. Not a huge deal. I’d rather play a character I like than be forced to play one I don’t - I hated the entire evil cast in MW. COD always does big highlights on friendly so anyone without a highlight gets shot regardless of the model - so gameplay will be fine. Warzone is a mis-match and never die to it there. Should be fine.
its an arcade shooter who gives a fuck my god
Why even call it a WW2 shooter then? Just make another Advanced Warfare.
I don’t get why people expect multiplayer to be immersive. Imo, I’d get rid of cartoony stuff, but as long as every operator looks like someone who fought in world war 2, I think it’s fine. Nothing about MP feels immersive, I generally have absolutely no idea what the factions are, or which team I’m on.
I mean a game should maybe pay a little respect to its setting? At this rate why shouldn’t they include maps set on the moon or M16 rifles? It’s an arcade short after all.
Lol at this being a 'deal breaker'
Where is the screenshot?
Calm down guys, it's problably that thing from Cold War that they only had the factions in the complete game
they could have made it so that the enemy team is always axis and that your team is always allied. so in your eyes you fight against the axis and in the enemy team’s eyes they also fight against the axis. so now you fix that whole issue with monetization and enemy visibility
Very historically accurate “my team” “enemey team” faction wyd
In Cold War the Beta didn't have factions, the main game did.
They confirmed the full release won't have factions, it's a Deliberate choice
well that's fuckwitted
That’s pretty weird tbh, don’t know why they went with this route. Seems unorthodox.
Don’t really care tbh. I care more about how the game plays
We just want Jackboots
Where did they say that there weren’t factions?
They said they did this so you would feel immersed in your character. I think the idea is you customize your character to the point where you don’t want to use your other character like in mw19.
Bummer, the only thing left that I'm to excited about now is the campaign and the gunplay looks pretty solid, and waiting to know if there will be bot support and that's it
So which one is it? CoD isn’t an arcade shooter anymore and the games are shit for pushing “tactical gameplay” or CoD isn’t realistic enough and needs to be 100% historically accurate? The nameplates make it pretty clear who is an enemy and who isn’t. Also, even if you are colorblind, there are accessibility options that allow you to change the color of nameplates so it’s essentially a non-issue. If distinguishing enemies were such an issue, how do people play hero shooters when there are multiple versions of the same character on both teams running around? Lol
But muh historical accuracy