Call of Duty Vanguard Prestiges are literally crashing the game

Alec Mullins
Call of Duty leveling up bug

The Prestige system is an integral part of the Call of Duty multiplayer structure but problems with Vanguard’s pre-season XP tracking have created a big issue in the fan-favorite mechanic. 

There have been a number of bugs and problems affecting Vanguard’s multiplayer mode since launch, like this ridiculous ‘elevator’ glitch that lets players scope out the entire map, but a new issue is ruining the feeling of prestiging.

This is only happening in the post-game menu after players reach the end of Prestige 2, and begin their journey into the 3rd prestige and Levels 100+.

Call of Duty Vanguard’s 3rd Prestige bug

Call of Duty Vanguard 3rd prestige Silver Star icon

The problem occurs after reaching Level 101.

Instead of ticking up and continuing to progress, the experience tracker never changes to the next level – leaving players stuck there no matter how much XP they earn while the bug is active.

As a side-effect, this causes the XP distribution screen to endlessly loop the Prestige Level Up animation regardless of whether or not a level up should have occurred.

Vanguard’s Prestige system is designed to cap out at the third tier during this pre-season before expanding to seven in December’s Season One update, but the level cap is intended to be 1000, not 101.

Reddit user jonnyboy816 chimed in to confirm that he is also experiencing problems at this benchmark: “Same thing happening with me for about a day and a half now my level just loops just like yours at Lvl 101 prestige 3.”

Another commenter added: “Thought this was a bug and restarted my game a few times yesterday because of this.”

The problem looks to be more of a visual issue, as another user reports that the game is tracking player levels accurately despite the broken visuals: “Some guy is at prestige 19 (level 900) but it only shows prestige 3 in the lobby and barracks.”

Sledgehammer has yet to acknowledge this bug at the time of writing.

About The Author

Alec Mullins is an FPS writer focusing on Call of Duty and Apex Legends and their respective esports scenes. He worked at TheGamer before joining Dexerto. On the weekends, you'll find him watching the CDL and jamming to The Mountain Goats. You can find Alec on Twitter @LifeAsAlec