The Covenant System in Call of Duty: Vanguard's Zombies Mode is arguably the best thing they've added to the game mode with this new installment. It essentially functions as a way to add roguelike/rougelite elements into Call of Duty: Vanguard, by giving players a variety of modifiers to diversify their builds throughout their Der Anfang run.
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In the game, the new addition of covenants serve as a way for players to pick up new abilities and skills, gaining power to help them fight off these undead creatures. Let's take a look at these covenants, and rank their usefulness in the current meta of Zombies (rife with bugs and exploits) from worst to best.
11 Resurrectionist
The multiplayer-only Covenant, Resurrectionist, comes in last for two big reasons. Firstly, Solo players won't ever even see this Covenant. Second, it's an ability that revives allies from a downed state faster — but allies really shouldn't be going down in Der Anfang often, if at all.
Sometimes there's no way to avoid it, but at most, it should happen between one or three times total in a run. Even when it does, the punishments are so minor in Vanguard Zombies that it's really no big deal, so this ability isn't all too useful.
10 Splatterfest
On paper, Splatterfest seems like a pretty fun Covenant, as it sounds like it could turn a player into a walking arbiter of explosions. But after looking into it further, there just aren't enough ways to get this to trigger.
There are no explosive weapons in the current batch of weapons in Vanguard that are even viable to run in Zombies. While there are a fair amount of explosive grenades and equipment, the way that Der Anfang is set up, zombies really don't bunch up and are found more often in packs of small groups, especially in the Red Star Hub Area.
9 Cull The Weak
On its own, Cull the Weak is a relatively useless Covenant. It does more damage to slowed or stunned enemies, two status effects that only a handful of guns and equipment can inflict. But, when combined with the Cryofreeze Covenant, Cull the Weak becomes incredibly useful.
Cryofreeze works like anyone would expect, and inflicts a chilling slow upon Zombies it is triggered on. And, when those slowed Zombies are shot by a player bearing Cull the Weak, they die that much quicker.
8 Unholy Ground
In any other Zombies mode in any other Call of Duty title, Unholy Ground would be pretty awful. In fact, there was a Perk in Black Ops 4 Zombies called Stone Cold Stronghold that, like Unholy Ground, gave the player various buffs for standing still. It was not well-liked.
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But Der Anfang Zombies' objectives, quite frankly, work better while camping in one spot than running circles around each small zone. Thus, Unholy Ground is actually much more useful than it might first appear.
7 Bloodlust
If knifing was still a thing in Vanguard Zombies, this Covenant would be near the top. But, because Vanguard (for some reason) replaced the standard knife melee with an awkward gun-melee animation, Bloodlust's potential was hampered.
Still, the absurd amount of health that this Covenant returns to the player is noteworthy. It also makes it nearly impossible to die when surrounded by zombies, as long as the player keeps the melee attacks coming. Now, if only the player's issues with melee were just contained to Zombies and not Multiplayer too, that would be great.
6 Brain Rot
For those familiar with the Ammo Type modifications from Cold War and Black Ops 4, this Covenant is the same. With Brain Rot, players now have a chance to turn Zombies to their side, changing their health bar from the default red to green. These new ally zombies will attack other zombies and block the way before quickly exploding into poisonous goo.
The sad thing is, this version of Brain Rot is much worse and than it was in Cold War Zombies, which had a system for upgrading and improving the Ammo Type Mods outside of a run. Because Vanguard lacks this, Brain Rot can't go as far as it deserves.
5 Cryofreeze
Another Ammo Type Mod from past CoD games, Cryofreeze makes its transition to Vanguard much more cleanly than Brain Rot did. Just like in previous games, Cryofreeze has a chance to "freeze" and slow Zombies inflicted with it.
This has obvious benefits in a Mode entirely centered around survival and not getting swarmed. More than that, Cryofreeze synergizes with other Covenants in Vanguard well, while many others lower on this list do not.
4 Mother Lode
Now, some players may feel that this Covenant deserves the top spot, and those players are lucky ducks who got Mother Lode to trigger many times. With this Covenant, players may be able to keep Equipment after use. However, because every rarity of Mother Lode has a bit of RNG as to whether it actually keeps the Equipment or not, it's not dependable enough for the top spot.
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That said, when it does trigger in-game, it always seems to trigger multiple times in a row. This allows players to chuck a seemingly infinite amount of Molotovs or Stun Grenades from their bottomless pockets.
3 Ammo Gremlin
Ammo Gremlin is, quite frankly, the most absurd Covenant on this list. Reload times and the act of reloading is one of the biggest ways to limiting players becoming overpowered in Zombies, and this Covenant just gets rid of it. That said, by far the best way to use this Covenant is with the Shotguns such as the Einhorn Revolving Shotgun, the Double Barrel, or the Gracey Auto Shotgun.
The Einhorn Revolving Shotgun, in particular, is the king of all Vanguard Zombies weapons when paired with this Covenant, as the reload for this gun is by far its worst aspect. Ammo Gremlin is still immensely useful with all the other guns, it's just the best with Shotguns due to how slowly these higher ammo capacity guns automatically reload.
2 Death Blow
Funnily enough, these Last two Covenants probably have the best synergy with each other out of any other Covenant in the game. First up is Death Blow, which returns a certain amount of ammo back to the clip with every Critical Kill. The Ammo returned differs between rarities, but any time saved from the long reloading animations in Vanguard is a big bonus.
And, because Critical Kill are basically the only way to actually kill Zombies quickly in Vanguard, this Covenant will be triggering almost constantly when grabbed. Sadly, there are no one-bullet guns in Vanguard to really try synergizing with this Covenant, such as a crossbow. However, the sawed-off Shotgun does come pretty close.
1 Dead Accurate
Finally, the Gold Medal goes to Dead Accurate. It's likely that just about every player of Vanguard's Zombies mode had a similar reaction when reading what Dead Accurate did for the first time, as it's an obviously amazing Covenant. There are a lot of low-damage, high fire-rate guns in Vanguard that can easily make the most out of this Covenant, which increases damage with each consecutive hit on an enemy.
Even the Shotguns, which are the exact opposite of low-damage, high-fire rate, still work amazingly well with the Covenant. They work best when also paired with something like Ammo Gremlin, but it's impossible to go wrong with Dead Accurate.
Call of Duty: Vanguard is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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