#vanguard zombies

[taco0000oo]

(Comm) any vanguard zombros out there

[loafaethernaut]

If you didn’t play Vanguard’s Shi No Numa and care about the Dark Aether storyline, this post is for you!

Okay so I know Shi No Numa came out for Vanguard weeks ago but I simply lacked the interest in playing it until very recently and after I completed that main quest I’m surprised I haven’t seen anybody talking about it because the things we learn in that story have some potentially very interesting implications for where we left off in the Cold War portion of the DA storyline.

Basically the main goal of the Shi No Numa quest is to help one of our DA entity allies Saraxis regain her lost memories so that she can remember how to find an artifact that will help us trap the DA entity Kortifex and stop him/the Nazis helping him from taking over the world.

And what I’m starting to piece together is that yeah, it’s probably not a coincidence that Saraxis has a similar name to Samantha Maxis and also shares a similar backstory (gaps in her memory) and even has some very similar personality traits (dry sense of humor, very clever and cunning, doesn’t trust easily, impulsive and quick to anger, sense of redemption).

It’s also likely not a coincidence that the overarching plot of VG zombies now seems to be trying to find a way to trap Kortifex within a device/artifact in order to prevent taking over the world… sounds a lot like the plot of Forsaken’s map to me.

But once you beat the boss fight on Shi No Numa and restore Saraxis’ memories (which now makes me curious if we’ll have to do the same for Sam in a future game/map) she tells you about her past as Kortifex’s wife, and how she had a child who she tried to hide from Kortifex until he found out.

This was the only screenshot I could grab from my own playthrough:

It’s also worth noting that the reason why Saraxis had to hide this child from Kortifex was because he didn’t want a potential successor to his throne to threaten his power in the Dark Aether.

Saraxis doesn’t ever specify what exactly Kortifex did to their child, but I think I’ve got a pretty good guess…

Don’t ask me how this makes sense, that’s honestly kind of a pointless question to ask given Samantha’s entire backstory and the fact that these are inhuman gods/demons/entities who have their own set of rules for how any of this works. It answers more questions about Sam’s story in CW than it does create them.

It also may or may not be a coincidence that this map has a side quest similar to the Max Ammo side quests on the Zombies Chronicles maps where it plays a version of Samantha’s theme song and shows her little statue from the old Aether timeline.

TLDR: Samantha Maxis is most likely a child of Saraxis and Kortifex from VG zombies.

Also bonus! Krafft mentions Alistair Rhodes from the BO4 Chaos storyline and his work, so that likely means the Chaos storyline is confirmed the same canon universe as the DA storyline!

[leecanthrope]

vanguard zombies has room to grow in my opinion, but I love saraxis. here’s her bonded host, Yanaguchi

[oyeone89]

June 5th, 1985

A couple of hours after defeating the Forsaken, Maxis returns from the Dark Aether. However, she is no longer the Maxis we know and love today. She’s been corrupted, possessed by an ancient evil, ready to consume this realm….

A Cold War/Vanguard Zombies crossover!

[angelusmortis77]

finished drawing Kortifex from Vanguard zombies I will say vanguard zombies isn't my favorite but I will say I do like this character style...

[loafaethernaut]

I’ll be honest even I’m not playing Vanguard zombies on a regular basis anymore, but just in case there might be somebody, anybody, who is still interested in that mode I have great news! In the Season two reloaded update coming later this week we will finally have a server pause option available!

Just a few important details to clarify however is that the pause option is for solo matches or private single player matches only. There is also a limit of up to two hours at a time the server pause will work.

I know this seems like a weird thing to get excited about- why wasn’t this a thing sooner if it’s always been a normal part of zombies on launch? Well the answer’s a little complicated, but it has to do with Sledgehammer’s engine for Vanguard not really designed for zombies gameplay in mind. Treyarch have to essentially make everything using someone else’s toolkit, with the usual egregious crunch times and production rushing that this franchise has become infamous for.

The only other new thing coming to zombies with this update is a couple new covenants- both look like they could be pretty decent if paired with the right weapons/covenants/artifacts. I myself might try the new explosives expert covenant and see how it works with Saraxis’ energy mine.

[loafaethernaut]

Time for another breakdown of the new Vanguard zombies content!!!

-We’re doing a separate post on Zaballa because yeah there’s a lot to unpack there-

-Was not expecting Vercanna to be purple… and is that a jellyfish in her artifact? Like… like the Dark Aether jellies in Cold War?

-We finally get the Ray Gun!!

-The Decimator Shield is kind of giving me the same vibes as the Apothicon Servant from BO3

-The blurry photos really don’t give us a good look at the new map/arenas but the fact that we’re getting the main quest right away with the new map is pretty cool!

I’ve been so stubborn to remain positive about Vanguard zombies that I refuse to give up now at this point.

[loafaethernaut]

I normally don’t like to talk about gameplay stuff with zombies on this blog (I prefer character and story stuff) but as someone who has played thousands and thousands of hours of zombies over the last twelve years: the overwhelming hate that Der Anfang is getting is just annoying.

There are quite a few things I don’t like about it myself, but there are also quite a few things that I do like and I think the map is a good foundation for future improvements given the severe lack of development time.

And I normally just try to ignore it because every new iteration of Treyarch zombies goes through the same cycle of intense hatred when it drops, eventual neutrality as the DLCs roll out and then suddenly calling it good and underrated when the next game drops and the cycle continues. But this time around it seems obvious that a lot of people aren’t even giving Der Anfang a chance because it doesn’t have traditional round-based pacing.

So I guess I just wanna say to those who are on the fence about giving Vanguard zombies a try- maybe give it a little while to see what updates become of it and without naming any names please don’t listen to the opinions of loud and obnoxious youtubers with high subscriber counts.