EVE Vanguard Gameplay and Development Details Explored During Fanfest Keynote

At the EVE Online Fanfest, the CCP London team gave a keynote giving a bit of a deeper dive into the development of EVE Vanguard, previewing much of what’s to come. The “MMOFPS” is a spin-off taking place in EVE Online’s massive New Eden universe and essentially promises a descent into the destruction caused by the constant space wars to make a mark as a mercenary. 

As general lore, players take up the role of immortalized consciousnesses that are able to hop around New Eden. In the case of Vanguard’s corner of the universe, these players land in Bastions and reform into clones, each one specially designed to the creator’s needs, in order to become mercenaries to whatever ends they wish. 

They also have a “Warbarge” that players will prep for missions in, letting them deck out their clones and weapons with high levels of customizability. Also, while it has a menu navigation system at the moment, the devs hope to let players wander around. 

The larger breadth of the game, especially involving story and the vaster power struggle, will center around the Bastions, which are essentially their own factions. Occasionally, these Bastions will overlap, which leads to player-versus-player Insurgencies—which players can participate in regardless of their home Bastion. In November’s playtest, these Bastions will be essentially handled by NPCs, but the hope for Early Access is that there’ll be player-run Bastions as well. 

Given the planets are in the destructive universe of New Eden, the team spent a decent lot of time showing off the dystopian ecology of its planets. The art team showed off the creation of the massive-feeling biomes, with giant ships like “dying beasts” ready to be picked apart as they lay in the dirt. 

The nitty-gritty is largely in the works, with only limited enemies and weapons so far. However, the devs directly reference sci-fi shooters of the 90s and 2000s such as Unreal and Doom in their influences for weapon design, aiming for some of that same quirkiness. 

It seems the team is also generally locked in on making viable NPCs that are meant to create a “cerebral” combat experience. They also say that NPCs will be less spontaneous, have individual identity, and act both individually and in groups, with behavior and even faction taken into account. 

The game’s in a pretty early alpha state at the moment, but on top of what was shown, the keynote explains a slew of other additions coming, including proximity chat, matchmaking and party making, weapons manufacturing, drop pods for map entry, and more. 

As unveiled during EVE Online’s Fanfest prime keynote, the next stage of Vanguard is a major play session coming September 16 this year. Early Access, which hopes to implement more of what’s mentioned, is slated for Summer 2026, and they really want people to wishlist it on Steam to the point of them making a milestone reward system. 

Until then, in the primary EVE Online, the next expansion coming this month introduces a freelance job system, two new massive dreadnoughts, and more.