Call of Duty Vanguard is about to drop its first season of content, connecting with Warzone Pacific and bringing many new additions to both games. This also means that new skins are coming with Season 1, including the newly revealed Vanguard CDL skins. 

The Vanguard CDL skins are not surprising since the Call of Duty League has received themed crossover skins for both seasons that have happened thus far in Modern Warfare 2019 and Black Ops Cold War, respectively. In this way, it is unsurprising that we are already getting similar Vanguard ones. 

The Vanguard CDL skins appeared in the game’s PC version after the latest update was dropped that included the release of the Season 1 content ahead of its launch on Thursday, December 9, 2021. Players will purchase them in the in-game store for some real-world money. 

At this time, there are two different skins that you can get. They will likely be available together in a bundle. There is a single Home CDL skin and then an Away CDL skin that you can get. This is ultimately unsurprising since similar skins launched first for Black Ops Cold War.

While the official Call of Duty League team skins would come, later on, the 2020 Call of Duty game launched with the generic CDL skins for players to unlock first. The problem with them was how generic they were, even to the point of not having a face for the operators you played as.

Thankfully, the Vanguard CDL skins at least solve this issue. While they are pretty boring in design, it does look like you can change the operator that you wish to equip them on. This means you can put the outfits on your favorite character that you like to play as in online multiplayer matches. 

As for how the Vanguard CDL skins look, the Home one is mainly black with a coat/jersey-like outfit that has the Call of Duty League logo on it and some white accents here and there. The Away skin is the exact opposite, having the same general coat design but with mainly a white outfit and some black accents here and there. 

Needless to say, though, the basic nature of these two Call of Duty League skins have elicited some disappointed responses. It started with Hitch of OpTic Gaming, who posted some comparison images showing off the esports-themed skins offered in other games like Halo Infinite, Rocket League, and even Activision Blizzard’s own Overwatch League. 

While Hitch is not exactly a pro player himself, he is deeply involved with one of the biggest and most beloved esports organizations, OpTic Gaming, as the creative director. The current pro players responded to the tweet and shared their disappointment with the skins. 

One such player was Gunless of the new Los Angeles Guerrillas 2022 team, who noted that “they are just trolling us at this point.” Furthermore, his teammate, SlasheR, also Guerrillas, just posted a World War II-themed gif of pained disapproval of the Call of Duty League skins in Vanguard. 

Furthermore, the OpTic founder and CEO himself, HECZ, even commented and, sadly, had to state that it looks like he has to “reach out to the creative director and explain” what ‘creative’ is. The pro players are not the only ones who are disappointed with the Vanguard CDL skins, either, as the fans are, too. 

There are plenty of comments about players who are just noting that it is a copy and paste situation from the past Call of Duty League skins that we had in Black Ops Cold War. It is certainly warranted complaints, especially if Activision expects players to pay real money for these skins. 

The one positive part is that we could see better CDL skins come out in the future, like what happened with the Cold War. The initial generic ones came out. Then the more specific team-branded skins came out later on once the Call of Duty League season started. 

We fully expect that a similar approach will occur in Vanguard with the start of the 2022 Call of Duty League season, seeing the 12 teams get their own specifically themed skins that you can purchase. As for how long it will take or what they will look like, that is the question for now. 

There is the chance that we could see a near copy and paste situation for the themed skins to look mostly like the Cold War counterparts, but with the new winter-like outfit. This would be unfortunate and a disappointment since players already have the same skins. 

There is a chance this might happen, too, given how similar the base ones are in Vanguard compared to the Cold War versions. For now, though, we will have to wait and see how the team skins are handled in Call of Duty Vanguard. 

One element of this that is uncertain is the fact that we only have 11 teams in the Call of Duty League right now. There is still an unannounced 12th team in the league, which may or may not be happening at this point. With the merger of OpTic and Dallas Empire to make OpTic Texas, the Chicago slot is now open. 

Thus far, there are no takers that we know of for the final team slot in the league, so there is still a strong chance that we could only see 11 teams in the upcoming season, which would mean only 11 skins for players to choose from. That would be unfortunate, so here’s hoping that Activision can work something out with a Challengers team or another organization to avoid this terrible situation.