Viral Vanguard TikTok reveals major historical plothole

Nathan Warby
Vanguard player aiming down sights

One of the big draws of the Call of Duty series is how it places itself within real-life conflicts. But thanks to a popular TikTok, fans are already noticing historical inaccuracies in Vanguard’s version of World War II.

The hype continues to grow around the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Vanguard on November 5. With the PlayStation Alpha seeing a mostly positive response, the future looks bright for the latest game in the CoD series.

That being said, even before the game’s release fans are picking apart its issues. Most recently, a viral TikTok has pointed out a historical pothole that has some members of the community puzzled.

cod vanguard character holding a weapon

A TikTok from user spectrexgaming unearthed a mystery relating to the sights available for weapons in Vanguard.

In an upload captioned “love the historical accuracy,” the user notes that red dot sights, one of the go-to optics in the series, were not actually brought into use until decades after the end of World War II.

“If red dots weren’t deployed until 30 years after WW2, how … are they in Vanguard?” they ask in the video. According to sight’s inventor Aimpoint, red dots weren’t introduced until 1975, while WWII ended in 1945.

The TikTok has received over 250,000 likes since it was uploaded on August 28 and has been shared nearly 2,000 times.

On the face of it, this may look like a big oversight on the developer’s behalf. But Sledgehammer has said in the past that Vanguard is “rooted but not beholden” to the exact timeline of the Second World War.

There’s no doubt though that for players who value historical accuracy in their military shooters, this may be a detail that causes frustrations. We’ll have to wait until Call of Duty: Vanguard releases to see if the devs have taken any other liberties with the timeline.

For more on Vanguard, be sure to check out the changes to both healing and the mini-map players are calling for after the end of the PlayStation Alpha.

Image credits: Activision