As in the past few Call of Duty games, in Call of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer game modes, you’ll be picking an operator to play as for the match. Each of Vanguard’s operators has their own backstory, and developer Sledgehammer Games has introduced four of them – including two characters who play pivotal roles in Vanguard’s single-player campaign.
Front and centre is Arthur Kingsley, the protagonist of Vanguard’s narrative campaign. He’s a special forces soldier who was born in Cameroon and educated in England, and enlisted in the army as a paratrooper during World War II. Sledgehammer says he was the first character the studio created for Vanguard, and his important traits – in particular, a natural sense for true leadership – have been at his core since the start of Vanguard’s development.
Next up is Russian sniper Polina Petrova, who also appears in the single-player campaign. Sledgehammer says over the course of Vanguard’s story, we’ll see her transformation from a nurse who yearned to join the battle into a fearsome soldier feared by the Nazis and celebrated by her fellow soldiers.
“We knew we wanted to feature a character who took inspiration from all of the brave women who fought and died to protect their home,” Sledgehammer explains in a post on the PlayStation blog. “Once we had settled on Stalingrad as a setting for her levels, the character of Polina started to take shape.”
Daniel Take Yatsu is a Japanese-American sniper who has mixed feelings about the war: his family had been forced to live in the internment camps the US set up for citizens of Japanese descent during the war. “Like many Japanese Americans, he was drafted into the army to protect a nation who did not consider him an equal citizen,” Sledgehammer writes. “Daniel’s feelings about the war and his nation are deeply ambivalent, but he still fights to protect his fellow soldiers and for the nation he believes America could still be one day.”
Padmavati Balan is another operator who will be available in multiplayer modes. “Padmavati is a fierce soldier adept at jungle warfare, but also a battle-weary nurse who loves to perform poetry and music,” Sledgehammer says. “She dreams of an India whose fate is determined by the will of its own people and is convinced that they will one day prevail.”
“These four characters are just a few of the many that Vanguard brings to light in both its Campaign and Multiplayer modes. Our goal was to give a backstory to the faces that made up the world’s greatest conflict, and to showcase their humanity as they fight to save it,” Sledgehammer says. However, the studio also points out that while Vanguard’s campaign does reference some historical events, its story about a crack team of commandos stopping a secret Nazi plot is “unique to Call of Duty.”
You can check out all of the best Vanguard operator perks you’ll be able to pick when the release date arrives next month.