Major Vanguard visibility bug is making matches completely unplayable

Sam Comrie
An image of Call of Duty Vanguard.

Call of Duty: Vanguard has a myriad of glitches hindering the multiplayer experience, but constant visibility issues may be stemming from something much deeper in the game. 

Despite Vanguard enduring some of the worst bugs in Call of Duty history, the game keeps players coming back for familiar franchise action. However, making that explosive carnage happen isn’t easy, when visibility is incredibly tough due to visual errors.

With many players jumping into Vanguard for the first time after Christmas Day, this pesky problem needs to be resolved quickly.

A screenshot of Shipment from Call of Duty: Vanguard.
Vanguard’s selection of maps have been widely praised since launch, despite gameplay problems.

“Massive visual bug” persists to ruin Vanguard

Showcased by Reddit user u/Kuyun, Vanguard has a serious problem when it comes to dealing with smoke-based visual effects. While incendiary and smoke grenades naturally leave their own particle effects, Vanguard’s approach to keeping these effects “live” causes major issues on the map.

The frustrated player went on to provide an explanation of how the bug operates in the game: “You can see for people that have trouble seeing anything especially on small maps it’s a bug and not 100 grenades. When you turn around (not even far) all the smoke and fire from previous thrown incendiary grenade will flair up again.”

As the bug essential reignites the visual effect for previously thrown tacticals, it is hard to farm any kills through the fog: “It doesn’t matter if you throw them or not, it doesn’t disappear, when you respawn you also respawn everything at once…Other than just sitting still there is no way to counter it.”

Fellow players – like u/MongoLife45 – also responded to the bug, noting it can’t be stopped due to repetition: “I see the old smoke and fire disappear… and then NEW grenades are getting thrown, repeating the process.”

The developers have yet to offer an official response on this issue, but it is safe to say a hot fix should be deployed in the weeks to come.

About The Author

Sam Comrie is a former Dexerto journalist based in South Yorkshire, UK. He has an MA in Multimedia Journalism and joined Dexerto in 2021 after producing content for NME and Red Bull Gaming.