Vanguard Zombies fans slam new Archon DLC map as “worst” in mode’s history

Hamza Khalid
Raul Menendez in Vanguard Zombies

Vanguard Zombies players are not impressed with the brand-new Archon map in Season 5, with some describing it as the “worst” one in the mode’s history.

The Vanguard developers implemented plenty of fun content for players to enjoy in the Season 5 update on August 24, including a brand-new round-based Zombies mode map known as The Archon.

This map is a reimagining of the Terra Maledicta map from Season 2 and features a boss fight at the end of its main quest. However, The Archon has received criticism from Vanguard Zombies fans shortly after its arrival.

Reddit user ‘OswinPond’ expressed their frustration with The Archon map in the CoD Zombies subreddit, declaring it the “worst map ever.” They claimed that it was too similar to the Terra Maledicta, with the most notable difference being a green tint.

The Redditor explained: “Here the layout is exactly the same, the atmosphere is the same (past the green tint), the enemies are the same, it’s literally the same map they “sold” us twice. There isn’t even an intro or ending cutscene.”

Many of the commenters in the thread agreed that The Archon doesn’t feature enough changes to differentiate it from Terra Maledicta, which was considered a boring Zombies map after it first launched in Vanguard.

One user stated that The Archon is easily one of their least favorite maps in Zombies mode along with Der Anfang, Terra Maledicta, Tortured Path, and Infection. Despite this, they still enjoyed the boss fight.

While it received an overwhelmingly negative response from fans in this thread, the new Zombies map still had a few defenders. Some of the commenters managed to have fun after hopping into The Archon.

According to one player, The Archon is more fun than Terra Maledicta because it works a lot better as a round-based map rather than an objective map. However, they added that this could “probably be said about any map.”

It remains to be seen if players’ opinions about The Archon will slowly change over time, but most of the Vanguard community is currently not impressed with the map.


For more Vanguard content, check out how to get the Raul Menendez and villain Operators in Season 5 as well as the devs accidentally leaking a new weapon that could hit Warzone soon.

Image credits: Sledgehammer Games

About The Author

Hamza is a Content Creator & Publisher at Charlie INTEL, who graduated from Bahria University with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration. He's spent the past few years covering news and guides for various video games, including Call of Duty and Apex Legends. He loves digital art, movies, and comic books. You can contact Hamza at [email protected].