TheCall of Duty: Vanguardbeta has been accused of a variety of issues, particularly surrounding visibility and audio. Now, some fans are going a step further and accusing theCall of Duty: Vanguardbeta’s sound mixing to have been deliberately modeled to imitate a soldier with severe hearing damage.
The argument shared by Redditor ian2345 states that the game is set in 1945 towards the end of World War 2, when many soldiers would have been suffering from hearing damage because of the lack of ear protection on the battlefield. That’s certainly one explanation for the consistent audio issues that have plagued beta players, making it difficult to identify muffled footsteps and even gunshots.Call of Duty: Vanguardhas promised to fix these issues, hopefully during the beta, but Sledgehammer Games hasn’t made many concrete statements about the audio problems.
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According to ian2345, the audio issues are actually a clever attempt to build realism by adding in the subtle, easy-to-miss detail of every sound being tinny and difficult to hear. TheCall of Duty: Vanguardbeta is already under attack by cheatersand the audio issues on top of this appear to have gathered a lot of annoyance. Even the player’s own gunshots sound tinny and muffled–identifying other players by sound can be nearly impossible.
One of the biggest complaints fans seem to have concerns the footstep audio, which is very difficult to pick out even when crouching in hiding, let alone running around the battlefield. This isn’t the first time aCall of Dutygame has had trouble with footsteps–Call of Duty: Modern Warfarehad the opposite problem, with exceptionally loud footsteps giving away the position of players and allowing enemies to track them across the map. The result was reportedly distracting, butCall of Duty: Vanguard’s muffled footstep audio may not be any better, as Twitter user @DEANOJEAVO shows in a short gameplay video. In the clip, a player is shown wandering around a snowy map, attempting to track down the enemies they can only hear as if from a distance.
As of writing, it appears that ian2345’s complaints have been well-received by other fans, though most comments dropped the faux-realism argument in favor of criticizing the game directly. Some Redditors also complained about the lack of Axis presence, while others continued to focus on the poor sound design. Twitch streamerxQc also criticized theCall of Duty: Vanguardbeta, focusing on its tanky enemies.
Call of Duty: Vanguardis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
