Call of Duty: Vanguard’s MVP voting system gives me a reason to stick around after a match

Call of Duty: Vanguard is out in the wild and fans are having their say about the game’s multiplayer.

It seems to be going down relatively well – I haven’t come across an outright dud of a map yet, and the action is fast, lethal and, when played with the Blitz combat pacing, all out chaos. Check out Eurogamer’s Call of Duty: Vanguard review to find out what we thought.

One new feature for Call of Duty Sledgehammer added to multiplayer for this year’s game has been universally praised: the team MVP voting system. Check it out in the video below:

Call of Duty has had a play of the game system for a few years now, but this is the first time you’ve been able to vote on a team MVP after a match.

Vanguard picks three players from the game to make available for voting, each focusing on a different aspect of player performance. A player who got a lot of headshots may be put forward. Another who had an impressive kill / death ratio may also get the nod. You may even be flagged if you grabbed the objective a fair few times.

Each operator is treated to a short cinematic cutscene before the voting begins (this is one of the cosmetics Activision will no-doubt lean on throughout Vanguard’s life cycle). And then you vote with the press of a button.

I normally vote for players who played the objective (god forbid), in some no doubt futile bid to promote teamwork. Most of the time it’s the player with the best K/D or headshots or eliminations who ends up winning, though.

Why bother to stick around to vote at all? You get extra experience points for casting a vote, which I think is a smart design decision on Sledgehammer’s part. Everyone knows what the Call of Duty grind is like – any extra XP you can snag is a bonus.

The system also promotes positivity, which is normally in short supply when it comes to Call of Duty. Your vote sends a soupçon of joy to the player who receives it. I’ve even heard a few players make their case for why they should win the vote over party chat, which is always fun.

In the video above, I receive five votes for getting the most captures during the match and win the MVP vote. Lovely!

The MVP voting isn’t perfect. The voting period lasts for 30 seconds, which is a tad too long when all you want to do is get into the next game quickly. This could probably be shortened to 15 seconds – everyone who intends to vote will probably have done so by then. And it’s a little silly to see the same operator skins doing the same MVP highlights animations one after the other in the voting lineup, but things will get more varied when Activision releases more of these cosmetics over the coming months.

Vanguard doesn’t rewrite the Call of Duty rulebook – far from it – but little touches like this go a long way to keeping me playing.

Perhaps I should run for prime minister next?