While Call of Duty: Vanguard will include a Zombies mode on release day, players can't try out the main quest until sometime after season one's launch. Treyarch announced that the main quest won't be part of Vanguard's November 5 release or the start of season one on December 2. Instead, new Zombies content will start rolling out as part of the game's first season, with the main quest coming at a later time.
"Starting on December 2nd, new Zombies content & features will begin to roll out in Vanguard," Treyarch said. "Players will also encounter some other surprise elements later in Season One that will set the stage for our upcoming Main Quest.
The main quest will apparently be tied to "the arrival of an unexpected ally after Season One". We don't know exactly when that means the main quest will drop. We just got a look at the Call of Duty: Vanguard roadmap, which spells out the game plan from launch through the start of season one.
While Sledgehammer is developing the bulk of Vanguard, Treyarch is handling the Zombies mode. Recently, Treyarch has been very busy with Call of Duty, leading development on 2018's Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and 2020's Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War..
Vanguard isn't the only upcoming first-person shooter adding in major content after launch. Halo Infinite, which launches next month, is shipping without campaign co-op or Forge at launch. Similar to today's Vanguard Zombies news, both features will come to Halo sometime after season 1.
For more, check out our Call of Duty: Vanguard preview and our in-depth look at Vanguard's campaign.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.