Running around the battlefield, ashes blowing in the wind across an utterly devastated landscape, the world of EVE Vanguard felt desolate, cold, and, at times, full of tension. As I moved through the ashen wasteland, picking my way carefully around the wreckage of the giant spaceship, that tension heightened every time I saw enemies on the horizon, unsure if they were a pack of NPCs or fellow Vanguards surveying the destruction up close as well.
It felt very EVE in a way - that tense feeling you get when a ship warps into the grid, and you aren't exactly equipped for a fight, or the feeling I sometimes get when flying through Nullsec space, assuming at any moment I could be webbed and podded simply for being there.
EVE Vanguard reminded me of how I feel when I play EVE, and that's important for a team that is trying to create something that feels like it not only belongs in the grander fabric of New Eden but can thrive on its own.
Strong Foundations
One thing that became clear right away is that EVE Vanguard is, by and large, a competent shooter. Built using Unreal Engine 5, movement feels fluid yet still weighty enough that it doesn't feel like I'm floating along the burning embers around me.
The gunplay is responsive, snappy, and impactful, though the fact that there is only one weapon to test during the event did start to feel a bit one-note after a while. This decision, as EVE Online Creative Director Bergur “CCP Burger” Finnbogason told me in an interview last week, was designed to strengthen the core with this test, and then they will be expanding the arsenal in future Vanguard tests.
The gun model looks incredible, especially the holo-sight that activates when you aim down where your iron sights normally would be. Seeing enemies and allies highlighted in my view and the sights giving some information about the weaknesses of the enemy I’m looking at are incredibly nice touches. I especially like the small touches of a color shift on the gun skin when you load different ammo types into the weapon - there are two in the test: Kinetic and Energy.
I loved the pop and flash when an enemy’s shields were broken by my hail of gunfire or the tiny explosions when I took out a sentry turret that was still active. Animations of enemies when they were taken out left a little to be desired - they felt stilted and unnatural rather than a more fluid ragdoll effect I’m used to in other FPS games - but everything else around me felt impactful. Dare I say the overused video game writing word, visceral? Yes, it felt that too.
It helps that Vanguard, even early on, looks pretty stunning at times. Unreal Engine 5 is doing some heavy lifting here to achieve that level of fidelity in such an early test, with desolation never looking so good as it did here to me. Rocks looked craggy and porous, reminding me of the volcanic landscapes of CCP Games’ home country of Iceland, while the flickering of burning embers, material work on the carnage of the damaged spacecraft itself, and more all looked realistic - even with the aggressive cinematic color filter adorning the image. It’s an attractive game, and I’m interested in seeing how the team builds out even more environments in future tests.
This foundation of solid mechanics is core to how the CCP Games team is approaching EVE Vanguard, as EVE Vanguard’s Lead Product Manager Scott “CCP Collins” Davis told me in our interview.
“Before Vanguard becomes anything else, it needs to be a good shooter,” Davis said when talking about the overall vision of EVE Vanguard and how it fits into the broader space opera that is EVE Online. This foundation of being a good shooter is key - and it’s something that its predecessor, Project Nova, just quite didn’t have.
Davis joined the CCP London team just this past January, coming from stints at Wargaming, where he worked his way up from the analytics team to working on the production side in his seven years there. After joining the CCP Games team in London, he started working with the team to just lock down the gunplay, in his words, to make it work as a “really solid foundation” from which the team can work.
Throughout this process, though, it’s been a learning experience, according to Finnbogason told me in the same interview.
“It’s all about a strong foundation. And I think if there is anything we’ve learned, it’s if the foundation isn’t strong, then it doesn’t matter what you do. And you’ve seen that now with [EVE Online expansions] Uprising to Viridian to Havoc, how we’re trying to build on things that we’ve done. And we’ve taken the same approach [with Vanguard]. We’ve been learning from Dust 514, learning from Nova, from other iterations of the first-person shooter.”
That foundation is definitely there for me - though, like all things, it’s not perfect early on. While the gunplay itself feels solid, the enemies I would shoot at felt a smidge dumb. Sometimes, they would just stand still as I shot them, letting me take out the clone, while others would run and hide behind a rock, only not to engage any further - even when I ran up and shot them point blank.
However, when the AI was working to perfection, it was pretty good. There were some encounters were I saw myself getting flanked, the darker suits of Mordu's Legion blending in quite well with the ashen and barren wasteland around us. So it was, in the end, hit or miss for me.
There was some confusion on my end with how deployables work, from a shield barrier I thought I crafted while roaming around never actually appearing in my inventory, and even some confusion with how to accept contracts - it just wasn’t entirely clear in the UI.
But these are all things that can be iterated on and fixed during subsequent tests - what can’t be fixed is a lackluster first impression, something I felt with Project Nova back at EVE Vegas 2018 but don’t feel here with EVE Vanguard.
EVE within EVE
Freedom is key in EVE Online. You can literally be anything you want, from a robber baron-style industrialist to a key diplomat helping to end the myriad player wars - or spark them - over the years. EVE Vangaurd is meant to be another layer for EVE Online, a way for players to impact the world of New Eden, but in a new way.
This idea has felt elusive to those of us who have followed CCP’s endeavors to build an FPS over the years. Yet, with EVE Vanguard, putting the launcher within the EVE Online launcher and tying it to an existing Omega subscription fee helps to bridge the gap before you even log into your new Vanguard clone.
This is further heightened, at least for me, when I finally set foot on the planet’s surface. There was no direction, no hand-holding, nothing. I had the freedom to try to complete contracts and play the extraction mode the way I wanted to, or I could hang back, hunt other Vanguard players and disrupt their time - the Lowsec Pirate in me won out, and I found myself doing more of the latter as the gameplay session went on.
You can do both - which I did as well. Hunting around for credits to upload into my bank, nanites, and more to fuel ammo crafting and gave downtime some more purpose. It helps, too, that the loot is aplenty, with cargo containers strewn about the volcanic and desolate wasteland. Some of these containers were easy to open, but others required nanites - and time - to hack into, leaving me exposed while doing so. The payoff on those is higher, though, so it’s up to the player to weigh the risk - which feels very EVE as well.
Ammo isn’t something you’ll just find; it has to be crafted on the fly with the materials obtained throughout your time on the ground. This is done using the nanites, electronic parts and more you find in containers around the battlefield. I found this part particularly interesting, and the need to build more ammo to ensure I never ran out during a firefight compelled me to loot and explore.
This idea, as Bergur explained, was borne out of the concept of fitting in EVE Online and approaching a firefight with the right fit to accomplish the job. Energy-based ammo was strong against the turrets, while Kinetic was more impactful on enemy clones themselves.
NPC enemies from Mordu’s Legion don’t drop ammo themselves; instead, they crumple to the ground, leaving behind biomass. This is used to heal your clone, as well as make more at a clone bank, which acts as respawns should you meet an untimely end. Just like in EVE Online, death is only another beginning in EVE Vanguard.
Approaching NPC rats versus another Vanguard player is incredibly different. While you can, more or less, attack the NPCs head-on, other players require a bit more tactical thought. Sure, you can rush an unsuspecting player and get some solid hits in, but the tides can turn quickly if you’re not careful.
One death I had was the result of hubris, thinking I could just tank my way through his withering fire. I was wrong - and in the process, I lost about 20 thousand credits I could have banked. However, as I steadily improved, slowly and methodically making my way around the map to get the jump on players, the kills started to stack up.
I got one kill after watching a Vanguard start to bank his credits. The area is situated in a large bowl, with the bank structure itself down in the middle, with plenty of angles and debris for other players to get a vantage point to attack, or even defend the banker if they are in a group.
This one wasn’t.
As I descended from the shadows, I unleashed a torrent of fire, bringing it all to bear on the unsuspecting Vanguard. They didn’t even get a shot off before their shields cracked, and they crumpled to the ground. It felt great, and it was one of the first times I felt like I was just stepping into the shoes of my Lowsec pirate capsuleer, ganking players when they least suspect it.
Another kill came in the same room - this was a popular place as it held the only bank on the map. I was returning to it to bank my own credits - I was holding about 50 thousand at the time - and a firefight was ensuing. Bullets whizzed around the room, a Vanguard player fighting with the Mordu’s Legion NPCs that usually guarded the bank. I waited, biding my time till the fight was over to strike, taking out the Vanguard player when they were low on ammo and possibly health. I felt triumphant as I looted his body for more nanites and money - I ended up cashing out over 100K credits in my time in EVE Vanguard.
One key aspect of how EVE Vanguard is legitimately tied to EVE Online is through the current corruption system at play with the MMO’s latest Havoc expansion. Corruption is spread by pirate-aligned players in faction warfare zones, fundamentally changing the nature of these star systems. A Lowsec system can start to feel like nullsec if corruption is high enough, while Highsec systems become more unsafe as corruption takes root there.
EVE Vanguard players can directly impact this mechanic in the First Strike test, sowing corruption through the completion of contracts. These contracts can be anything from simply killing 20 Mordu’s Legion enemies to reactivating the power in parts of the downed ship to start to bring it slowly back to life. As the contracts are completed, Corruption is added to the battlefields in New Eden, furthering the chaos and discord sown by the Deathless Circle.
While EVE players have a way of combating this corruption directly through its Suppression mechanic, there really isn’t any way to suppress corruption in EVE Vanguard, at least not directly. You can kill other Vanguards, thus stopping them from fulfilling contracts, but as of the First Strike test there is no tangible way to increase Suppression.
This, though, is one part of the larger picture with EVE Vanguard - another way to play and impact EVE Online.
As Above, So Below
“As above, so below.”
This is a phrase I’ve heard Bergur and other EVE developers say ever since the reveal in September. This elusive idea of creating an FPS that not only fits within the EVE universe but also thrives and is an integral part of that universe itself. This is something that Vanguard is attempting to do, and while the early goings see it as an extraction-style shooter that can, in one way, impact the space opera taking place in orbit above these battlefields, this isn’t the final version of CCP Games’ vision.
While we called Vanguard an extraction shooter back at Fanfest because, in effect that was what was shown, it’s much bigger than that. Davis says that this extraction loop that I played last week and players will experience starting today is just the beginning.
“The experience that will be going out in First Strike is probably the closest [Vanguard] will ever feel to what is sometimes deemed as an extraction shooter. And I think even some of the things that we’re adding in and some of the loops for in our session are already starting to diverge from some of those key themes of extraction shooters.”
Bergur adds that the extraction framework gives a good framework to test out many of the features they are going for with Vanguard, much more than just a straightforward deathmatch.
One way it diverges is team killing - nothing is stopping you or your teammates from simply taking you out from behind and looting all your stuff. That’s very EVE, especially if you’ve followed the latest heist that happened just a few weeks ago. Backstabbing and fragile alliances make up a large part of the fabric of New Eden, and those themes are alive and well in Vanguard.
Additionally, the idea of bringing the core playstyles of EVE Online and seeing how they can work in EVE Vanguard is something that both Davis and Bergur seemed excited about. The question of what it means to be an Industrialist in EVE Vanguard is harder to answer than if you’re looking at the MMO, but it’s an intriguing thought to ponder. A Vanguard Explorer, Miner, Soldier of Fortune?
Vanguard, like EVE Online, is also meant to be player-driven as it evolves and unfolds over time. And even in this small playtest, it already felt that way. As I said before, nothing was telling me what I needed to do; instead, I figured out how I wanted to play simply by playing. I wanted to be that player who let others do the work of grinding for mats, only to swoop in and take them for myself. I’m sure other players out there will replicate this, but I can also see Vanguard squads jump down on the planet as an extension of the player wars that rock New Eden above.
Like, it’s only a matter of time before a squad of Goonswarm and Pandemic Legion-aligned players, for example, start to abandon the contracts altogether and use the boots on the ground as a proxy war, much like the two sides in World War Bee 2 used Triglavian-invaded systems as proxy battlegrounds.
Because the aim is a sandbox shooter, part of the lessons that players, even in First Strike, will have to answer is how they define loss. Death in EVE Vanguard, much like EVE Online, is just the beginning - how do you take that death and learn? Does the death even matter that much, especially if your aim was to disrupt other players or simply complete contracts? Davis mentions that the team is honing in on this and wants players to define for themselves.
“I think we really just want players to be able to define their own successes, failure metrics, and their own conditions,” Scott tells me. He continued, bringing up how I was starting to tap into doing that myself, with my gameplay goals swapping from extracting to ganking during my session.
“You weren’t thinking so much that my win condition here is completing as many contracts as I want; it’s actually disrupting other people’s experiences. It’s what we say: dying in our games shouldn’t feel like it’s a negative thing. If you achieved a lot in your session, naturally dying is just a way you go out.”
Scaling the experience to larger maps, with more freedom and ways to interact with the game as well as other players, is something that the team is thinking of and working on for future tests. But part of that agency starts even here, in these smaller sessions where players can effectively approach even First Strike the same way they would EVE Online: finding your own fun.
EVE Vanguard is a great entry point for those who CCP calls “EVE curious.” It requires a subscription to the MMO to play, and while I think it’s a refreshing way to monetize the module personally, it will limit the number of people willing to take a chance on a test like this. $20 is a lot to ask a new player who maybe doesn’t want to play the MMO but is fascinated by the stories that come out of it to try the shooter test.
Then again, there may also be players who “won” EVE and are itching to feel part of the universe again - and Vanguard is a faster-paced way to interact with the universe in a meaningful way without hopping back into Jita and spending that hard-earned ISK on a shiny new ship - only to be sent a killmail a few hours later. And by spending that $20 on Omega, it might also draw some new players into the vibrant world of New Eden while they wait for the next Vanguard session, something that Bergur says will happen “fairly frequently,” though an exact timetable wasn’t given when asked.
Down the road, plans are already being laid for capsuleer contracts, so getting players into Vanguard will have an even more tangible effect for some of EVE’s largest corporations. Remember that proxy war I mentioned? What if part of that war goal was to disrupt opposing faction players from achieving their goals as defined by corporation contracts? Could we also see large swathes of Amarr and Minmatar Milita descend into the Vanguard battlefield to disrupt what the Deathless is trying to do here with the Vanguard clones? Most likely.
Will there also be many people joining EVE Vanguard just to shoot other players? I mean, killing is just a means of communication, so yeah, probably.
In the end, EVE players will, alongside the developers, help to mold this into what it will eventually become: a sandbox shooter that has real, meaningful ramifications on the MMO that has often been imitated but not replicated, by others over the last twenty years. It’s an exciting time to be an EVE fan - even if you’ve only ever been “EVE Curious.”
