Last week, Sledgehammer Games released a blog post that detailed various changes they were introducing to Call of Duty: Vanguard for launch. Most of these changes were solely based on community feedback, which could be a fantastic sign of things to come for the upcoming year. One of the most welcome notes in the blog post was the revelation that Vanguard will feature a separate Dead Silence perk.
In the Vanguard beta, Dead Silence was only in multiplayer as a Field Upgrade, the same way it was in Modern Warfare. After an outcry for a change, though, the developers complied with the community. Vanguard will have the Ninja perk when it launches on Nov. 5. Ninja replaces Low Profile in the perk one slot and effectively does the same as Dead Silence. However, there are some subtle differences that can help players determine whether they will run Ninja the perk or Dead Silence the Field Upgrade.
Comparing Dead Silence and Ninja in Vanguard
For starters, Dead Silence is still in multiplayer as a Field Upgrade. Sledgehammer’s blog post was updated earlier today, revealing that players can choose between throwing Ninja on as a perk or Dead Silence in the Field Upgrade selection screen.
Ninja does what it has in the past: allowing players to have silent footsteps when walking around. When sprinting, players’ footsteps are slightly louder but not nearly as loud as they would be without Ninja equipped. It’s the tried and true perk that veteran Call of Duty players know well.
Dead Silence, on the other hand, works a little differently. Players will have silent footsteps when walking and sprinting but only for the time their Field Upgrade is active. Dead Silence will have a timer from when it’s activated that will run out in a certain amount of time. Players can get kills while it’s active to extend the timer on it. When the timer runs out, players’ footsteps will be at their normal volume (unless they’re running Ninja as well).
However, now Dead Silence has the Ghost effect. This means that when Dead Silence is active, players won’t show up on the enemy radar if a UAV is active. Players need to be moving for this effect to kick in, though. If they’re not moving, they will still show up on the enemy’s radar. Sledgehammer stated these changes to Dead Silence “offer more flexibility in perk loadouts.”
Essentially, there are benefits and tradeoffs to running either Ninja or Dead Silence. Players who run Ninja will have silent footsteps permanently. However, they won’t be able to have any Ghost effect, since the Ghost perk is in the same perk one slot as Ninja. Players can’t run them at the same time. With Dead Silence, players can have Ghost and silent footsteps but not permanently. They’ll also have to pick and choose when to activate Dead Silence.
It will be interesting to see how these adjustments play out in both casual and competitive modes. Players can test out all of these new changes when Vanguard releases on Nov. 5.
