The Call of Duty: Vanguard beta has seen its first weekend of play, giving players the chance to get their initial taste of the new game before it launches on November 5 — and some players struggled massively.
The first weekend of the Vanguard beta was for PlayStation users only, and in particular, those who had preordered the game.
While many players were excited to hop into Vanguard and explore the new maps, modes, and weapons, it quickly became clear that there was one major problem for a certain group of players.
If you have failed thus far to get your hands on the elusive PlayStation 5, you might have found the Vanguard beta to be a real struggle on the PS4 — and you’re not the only one.
Citing major performance issues, those who experienced the beta on PS4 have described the game as ‘unplayable’ due to a number of factors.
Visibility has been noted as a common issue in recent Call of Duty titles, and Vanguard doesn’t look set to be massively different, especially for PlayStation 4 players (there’s no footage yet of Xbox One gameplay to know whether it affects all previous-gen consoles).
For example, Reddit user Wedclark struggled big time to locate and track an enemy, who seemingly disappeared behind gunfire and blended into their surroundings.
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Not only that, but servers have appeared to be a real issue throughout week one of the beta. While this seems to be an issue impacting both generations of PlayStation players, it’s particularly prevalent on PS4.
Twitter user Zach said that while Vanguard looks set to be a good CoD, that definitely won’t be the case on PS4, because “that s**t is unplayable.”
Vanguard will be a good COD, but defiantly not on PS4 LMFAO that shit is unplayable. no more beta until I can play it on PC
— Acentic (@Acentiic) September 13, 2021
Players such as FlexTango Gaming have also pointed out major frame rate issues, while others have complained about textures struggling to load in over longer distances.
The frame rate and lag in vanguard has gotten so bad it feels like you’re playing world at war tdm on the wii. Sincerely people playing on PS4 AND PS5 @SHGames
— FlexTango Gaming 🌐 (@Adam_Shnitzel) September 13, 2021
Add all of these together, alongside some bizarre weather effects that make enemy players look incredibly distorted, and the Vanguard developers have a lot to look at ahead of the game’s full launch on November 5.