After weeks of complaints, Call of Duty: Vanguard’s devs seem to have entirely reworked the controversial “bloom” mechanic. YouTuber XclusiveAce showed just how drastic the new buffed accuracy makes the game’s guns.
To put it simply, bullet bloom describes the area in which your gunfire spreads. Instead of every shot landing where your crosshair is placed, bloom makes bullets disperse — either narrowly or widely, depending on the weapon.
The mechanic exists in games like Overwatch, where Soldier 76 players shoot in bursts to maximize accuracy by minimizing the increase in bloom (or bullet spread) the longer you fire. But it’s relatively new to Call of Duty with Vanguard and… players were not fans of the addition.
Now, complaint upon complaint, Sledgehammer Games have nerfed bloom’s impact — thereby buffing a number of guns’ accuracy. In essence, the November 18 patch is going to make killing the bad guys a lot easier.
Call of Duty Vanguard bloom fix makes guns way more accurate
As you can see in the screenshot of XclusiveAce’s video, the spread of fire for a number of guns has been vastly reduced. This should mean those weapons are much more accurate and players are less likely to run into issues where they’re failing to get hitmarkers they expected to.
In Ace’s full video, he explains that literally every single gun that he tested seemed to have its bloom decreased significantly. Describing bloom as “random inaccuracy with your gun,” it should be clear why minimizing that bloom should delight players.
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New Vanguard gun bloom for all weapons after November 18 patch
For those who don’t want to watch Ace’s full video, he does share some guns that should clearly be buffed by this bloom change. The two principal assault rifles impacted are the AS44 and Volk, with both going from having “terrible” spreads to ones that feel much more like the pre-buff STG 44.
On the submachine gun side, guns like the MP40 and Sten received considerable buffs to their accuracy as well.
In total, though, Ace estimated that the overall reduction in bloom — across all weapons — is about 60%. This is a massive change to weapon accuracy and should make it much easier for players to land shots, especially with guns that have easy recoil control and high bullet velocity.