EVE Vanguard Impressions: Fun Gunplay And A Confident Vision, Even While Under Construction

Even after CCP showed it off at EVE Fanfest this past weekend, EVE Vanguard still has two challenges: Prove that it’s not just another extraction shooter (or just another PvPvE title doomed to a tiny audience), and prove that it’ll do better than Dust 514, its doomed Playstation 3 predecessor. 

Given much of EVE Online’s demographic is old enough to remember the PS3 title, Vanguard will always exist a bit in the, erm, dust of that prior title. However, given I lacked the apparatus to play that at that time, my mind instead aligns Vanguard, at the moment, into a box of other “extraction shooters, but different,” as a lot of others looking inward have 

CCP, meanwhile, very firmly insists it won’t be “an extraction shooter, but different,” and is trying to break free of that very box by creating its own “MMOFPS” title, meaning “massively multiplayer online first person shooter.” Down the line, it’ll have different game modes, with varying methods of contributing to the universe of New Eden and building power within that. 

For an EVE Fanfest demo MMORPG got to partake in, we didn’t see much of that “MMO” half of the title, because the larger scope of Vanguard is still under heavy development, as we’ll discuss a bit later. Instead, in this demo, as presented both to the press and to EVE Fanfest attendees, we were guided from our “Warbarge” into a full-on PvPvE environment where we got to give the weapons a try. 

While it’s rough at the moment, the MMORPG team present had enough time to feel some of what really makes the game shine—even if it’s not presently entirely what we were hoping to see. Turns out, there might be some nostalgia where you don’t expect it. 

The World, In Development

We started off in the Warbarge, which, for now, is a series of quick-pivoting menus that pan around the setting as the player pulls together their build. Our impression is that this is where the bulk of non-combat time will be spent for many players, as these menus have everything players need: modules for weapons and the characters, manufacturing for those modules, and the “Commissions” that will drive the storyline and faction alignments.

While most of the systems aren’t live yet, we got a sample of how manufacturing will work, and it’s thankfully pretty straightforward, as is the rest of the customization. It’ll give players the usual mix of gameplay bonuses and tools that’ll come in use when actually in the gameplay mode.  

The Vanguard team from CCP has been transparent about the ongoing state of playtesting, including at EVE Fanfest. My understanding is that what’s being shown isn’t the latest test, but instead the latest they’re confident in showing to the public. Even in the playtest footage shown, there are 

What’s implicit in that declaration, and a thread throughout many discussions of Vanguard, is that they’re not only transparent with the community, but actively in conversations as the game evolves. As someone on the stage said, to paraphrase, ‘if you think this is transparent, you should see the Discord.’ The best example the developers gave is the “banana gun”—which is essentially what they invoke when they want to talk about doing a “grey box” for weapons concepts. Instead of going directly into polishing a weapon, they handed the players a yellow circle, tell them what it’s supposed to be, and let the players give feedback before the weapon is fully fleshed out. 

But for us, for now, this means the demo lacks the non-combat multiplayer features, including the walking-around and social hubs that Vanguard may eventually implement, nor do we get a taste of the factional politicking that we’ll be engaging in through the Commissions system. Also missing are the tools that let players create missions to acquire materials, or to get materials of their own. The absence makes sense given the limited scope of a Fanfest demo, and we have these at least explained to us—and hopefully these show up for the September playtest, given it’s similar in length to this past November’s. 

A New Sci-Fi World of Eld

Vanguard’s more paced development means that a lot of the actual combat gameplay, once we got into the map, was perfectly fine as it was, but it sure felt like a work in progress. Visual indicators do the job but don’t look great; some “mining” spots weren’t particularly intuitive to tap into. And as a cherry on top, plenty of NPCs spawned a little too close for comfort or common sense. Oops. 

At the very least, goals are intuitive; a developer accompanying us points out that our objective is made obvious by a giant light in the sky as to create friction with players, on top of NPCs that spawn once the objective is triggered.

But once things get rolling and artillery exchanged, my biggest positive take away from my time with Vanguard is that these weapons absolutely rip. The aforementioned attention to detail for the “feel” of the weapons became immediately obvious when I equipped the marksman rifle, which is my weapon of choice in shooters and what I ended up playing for a bulk of my 25 minutes or so in the actual map. 

The marksman rifle does enough lifting as a demo weapon that I just simply forgot to swap for much of my time, because why would I? Each shot had real and proper drag—it was not only in where and how it ended up at the end of the trajectory, but there was literal air drag that showed me where it ended up. It’s one thing to have air drag in a video game, but to see and feel its force was just cool and made landing each shot fulfilling. (Joseph Bradford, our managing editor, also spoke highly of his shotgun, and found the guns overall tight and fun to fire.) 

While unfinished, the rest of the EVE Vanguard world invokes a similar imagination of a tense planet that really exists far beyond your immediate battleground, and like you're an intruder upon it, as are your foes. Even in this current state,  you're aware you're scouring ruins in the midst of landscapes where this metal sliced in. Even with claustrophobic or sprawling stretches, it felt more like the actual layout and playability of the map was the priority, though it at least felt friendly to gunplay and the push and pull of its king of the hill gameplay. 

All that said, the fingerprints of older science fiction games all over the game's combat and setting, drawing from the 80s to early 2000s grunge science fiction aesthetic so common in games and movies, had been on my mind since before I arrived in Iceland. Once it was mentioned by developers in preview presentations, we had more reason to ask the team about it—and indeed, the developers grew up with titles like Halo and Unreal Tournament and wanted to invoke that charm in its gunplay and overall vibes. Snorri Árnason even pointed out, in a separate interview, CCP’s long-gone Dust 514 was a fan favorite in that way of invoking fun elements of gameplay from other old favorites. 

There are definitely some games out there that try to replicate the experience of early 2000s sci-fi multiplayer FPS titles, but Vanguard is the closest we’ve gotten in a hot minute, between the movement across vast, dramatic settings and the real weight of any weapons or tools being held.

The Halo-type nostalgia isn't for its own sake; it's good to again feel like this is, in fact, a massive literal planet you have cloned into, and that these tools and "dying beast" spaceships don't belong, and neither do you nor your enemies. It feels satisfying to fire off the weapons, like there’s real bulk to them and real space made of real air between you and your enemies. After so many military shooters, it’s hard not to be eager to get my hands on Vanguard again.

Waiting To Be Shown More Of New Eden

The moment-to-moment gameplay is starting to improve, but absent from these playtests is the “MMO” portion of the “MMOFPS” that CCP London heavily promises. With EVE Online itself as old as it is, CCP is fighting to have its games see at least some longevity, and they hope that concepts such as Bastions—physical spaces owned by, and representing, both NPC and player factions—will be more fleshed out by the fall playtest and especially next summer’s Early Access. 

Some hints of high-level strategizing are present, at least, though it’s not dissimilar from other extraction games with module weapon modifiers. As it is in other games, I can see personalized builds becoming enough of a hook to keep players coming back and playing the way they enjoy, especially as more modules are released. 

But the devs have stated that this strategizing will be tied in with the Bastions, and only so much can travel with the player between these Bastions, meaning that there’ll be more complexity in various systems in the future. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of meta develops, and that’s exactly what CCP states across its messaging that it wants to see take place. 

Until it unveils more gameplay, CCP London will be fighting the “extraction shooter” accusations—but I don’t think that’s an issue. Extraction shooters are familiar to an international first-person shooter genre, and, let’s be honest, it’s not a bad genre to begin with, offering tiered levels of challenges between the world, the objective, and other players in this case. The issues with extraction shooters, or any game in any major FPS genre, are making a game stand out and giving players reasons to stick around. 

The hope for the evolving world within a universe—that is, Vanguard within New Eden—also brings a touch of intrigue that other modern sci-fi shooter titles such as Helldivers 2 and Warframe have managed successfully. Finding more reasons to squad up and get boots on the ground is part of the fun of multiplayer shooters, and EVE presents a unique opportunity to lean into that. 

Vanguard likely won’t have a problem making itself stand out as an FPS once it cements its gunplay and overall map design. On the other hand, we still have more to see down the road regarding the “MMO” half of its label, its other game modes, and social aspects before we can be confident about its future. Hopefully, everyone just has fun shooting each other, as one does.