Call Of Duty: Vanguard Zombies Finally Lets You Pause, But Players Are Disappointed

Since the launch of Call of Duty: Vanguard, Zombies players have struggled to play the mode for long periods of time due to the lack of pause feature. Now, Season 2 Reloaded has finally added the option to pause, but players are frustrated with the limitations of the feature.

Vanguard's Season 2 Reloaded's patch notes detail that the long-awaited pause feature allows solo players to pause for up to two hours collectively in matches played on dedicated servers. Treyarch also said the inactivity kick timer has also been extended in public matches, so players should have more than enough time for a bathroom break while their teammates fight off the undead.

Vanguard Zombies' new pause feature is better than nothing, but it's definitely a downgrade from the pause feature in Black Ops Cold War's Zombies mode, which allowed unlimited pauses for solo and co-op matches. Not only is Vanguard's implementation limited to just solo matches, but it limits how long the solo player can pause in one match. Having this new pause feature still makes Vanguard Zombies a burden for those who want to go for high rounds. Two hours of pause time may sound like a lot for some, but players still won't be able to take many breaks or get much of a snooze before continuing their quest for high round world records, which is a feat that can often take days of playing with players pausing for breaks to sleep.

"You literally can't pause your game overnight if attempting a super high round," tweeted popular Zombies YouTuber MrDalekJD. "How does that make sense?"

The ability to pause solo matches for an unlimited amount of time is something that has been available in Zombies since 2008's Call of Duty: World at War introduced the very first Zombies map, Nacht der Untoten. This leaves many players puzzled as to why normal pausing is such a huge problem for Call of Duty: Vanguard.

"What a slap to the face," says NooliesKnickKnacks on Reddit. "The fact that we’ve waited since launch for this feature to come and it isn’t even what we asked for. We had this feature at launch back on World at War, there’s no excuse now."

Treyarch previously discussed the reason for the pause feature delay back in January, citing issues with moving Zombies to an infrastructure hosted entirely on dedicated servers, and additional problems arrived with the move being paired with the switch over to Vanguard's new engine.

In the past, Zombies lobbies ran on player-hosted servers, which were sometimes prone to issues, depending on a player's connection and other factors. This means the overall gameplay experience should be smoother with the dedicated servers for Vanguard, but the extra stability now comes at the cost of pausing for any extended length of time. It's uncertain if Treyarch will be able to adjust the limitations on the pause feature, but hopefully some changes can be made to better accommodate the high round players.

In addition to the limited pause feature, Season 2's mid-season update for Zombies also adds two new Covenants and the new Sacrifice objective. Additionally, Warzone's mid-season update added a special event and major map changes to Rebirth Island. Players can also expect iconic rapper Snoop Dogg to arrive in Vanguard and Warzone on April 12 as a playable operator.