Call of Duty: Vanguard dataminers have found in-game code suggesting that an Attack on Titan crossover event may be on the horizon. Some key information, such as a new sword-based melee weapon and mentions of “titans” and “aot” further support a possible crossover with the popular manga and anime series. Activision has yet to comment on the leaks.
Attack on Titan is a popular manga series-turned anime that follows several soldiers in their fight against large and dangerous titans. The fourth and final season of the anime adaptation began earlier this year, and the second half will start airing at the beginning of 2022.
Twitter user @Nanikos spotted a new “aot_titan” operator in Vanguard’s memory files, as well as the mention of a new “swordtitan” weapon. If the datamined information does turn out to be an Attack on Titan crossover, Nanikos speculates that it will likely happen in December with the game’s first Season—and a month before the anime begins airing. Furthermore, the code also mentions the term “s4,” likely referencing the fourth season of the anime and not the fourth season of Vanguard (which won’t release until around June 2022).
Been quite a few things found in memory dumps for vanguard. The most interesting one being a mention of a “swordtitan” aswell as an “aot_titan” operator.
The theory is that there’ll be an Attack On Titan crossover for vanguard. (Probably sometime december if that is the case) pic.twitter.com/DiPALtUDY6
— Nanikos (@_Nanikos_) November 7, 2021
The crossover does make some stylistic sense, considering Vanguard’s WWII setting and Attack on Titan featuring references to World War II-era technology and weapons. Notably, dataminer @Zesty mentions that the new weapon is a sword-based melee weapon that is not a katana. This could indicate that players will get to use Attack on Titan‘s iconic Ultrahard steel blades in some form.
The far more curious part of this crossover is the Operator and/or skin. It raises a lot of questions, such as which character(s) or Titans will get skins/Operators added, and if their visuals will retain their anime aesthetic or be realistically stylized to fit in with Vanguard. The “aot_titan” portion of the code suggests that it’s a Titan being added, and not a human character (though fans of the show will know that those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive…)
The Call of Duty franchise is no stranger to pop culture crossovers, of course. Recently, Warzone and Black Ops Cold War featured some classic ’80s action heroes as operators, like Die Hard‘s John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Rambo‘s John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone). Halloween events have also brought horror characters like Billy the Puppet from Saw, Ghostface from Scream, and the rabbit from Donnie Darko. However, this would be the first time Call of Duty has collaborated with an anime or manga series—if you don’t count those anime weapon skins and body pillow charms from 2019’s Modern Warfare, that is.
We’ll likely learn more about the potential Attack on Titan crossover as we approach the release of Vanguard Season One and Warzone Pacific’s new Caldera map on December 2nd.
[Source: Reddit]
