Safeguard is essentially Call of Duty’s version of an escort mission. The objective is for one team to escort a non-combative robot safely to the other side of the map into enemy territory. The teams each get a chance to be in attack and defense roles. After two rounds are played, if both teams scored one win each, the round goes into overtime. Otherwise, if a team wins two rounds in a row, they win the entire match. It sounds a bit simple at first, but once you play a round, you’ll see how hectic this game mode can get.
In order for the robot to move forward, a player must be standing next to it. This basically forces players on the attacking team to be out in the open at some point. The robot can be disabled by the defending team if enough damage is done to it, turning the robot into a sitting duck. The robot will shut down for a brief period, forcing the attacking team to come out of cover to revive the robot. As long as the defending team has eyes on the robot, they should be able to take out the attacking players quickly enough to halt the robot’s advances.
Tips for the Attacking Team
It is important to note that in most other game modes, experienced players typically want to avoid pushing too far towards the enemy spawn side, as this risks flipping the spawns and causing the enemy players to respawn behind you. Spawn predictability factors into having overall map awareness.
However, in a mode like Safeguard, the spawns for each team pretty much need to be stable for the mode to work. Players on the attacking team can use this fact to their advantage by sending several players to aggressively flank towards the back of the enemy spawn side. This can help distract and eliminate defending players who would otherwise be working to disable the robot.
Tips for the Defending Team
When you’re on the defending side, prepare to rush the enemy spawn at the start of the round. Try your best to overwhelm the enemy team early in order to cripple their advances. If you hold them back long enough, it will be difficult for their team to escort the robot quickly enough in the remaining time. Of course, defending players will also want to inflict a ton of damage on the robot itself to disable it for a few seconds, but eliminating enemies can actually slow down the attacking team’s advances more effectively.
Also, since the robot walks along a fixed path, prepare to ambush the attacking team once the robot approaches a choke point. If you are familiar with the robot’s path on a given map, you can easily predict where the attacking team will be advancing from.
Like any game mode, try to think like your opponent. Anticipate the enemy team’s movements, and predict where they would set up an attack. This applies to both attacking and defending teams. Knowing where your enemy will be before they even get there will allow you to quell their efforts. Hopefully this guide has helped provide useful tips for the new Safeguard mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.
