Last week, I attended EVE Fanfest 2025, and while in Iceland, I went hands-on with the latest build of EVE Vanguard. If you caught any of the keynotes, EVE Vanguard Creative Director Scott Davis has been the ultimate hype-man for the Vanguard, and beyond being one of the people behind the game, he is right to be excited. Though the game is still over a year away from early access, the small taste that I got has me itching to explore New Eden’s planets with my boots on the ground.
EVE Online is notoriously a near-impossible game to break into as a new player. The sheer size is intimidating, and though the EVE community is welcoming, the gameplay is not. While EVE Online is getting Freelance Jobs, which will make it a bit easier to integrate players into the universe, CCP Games is exploring new avenues to bring fresh takes on the universe. That’s where EVE Vanguard comes in, a new MMOFPS that brings players down to the surface of the planets of New Eden.
The first thing CCP wanted to get across is that Vanguard is not just an extraction shooter, like many others that have been released recently. Though there are certainly extraction elements, there is a lot more to consider in this game, and with so much time before release, it can only expand from here. The universe in EVE Online connects directly to Vanguard. In both, you will find shared goals, efforts, and consequences.
“Creative Director Scott Davis has been the ultimate hype-man for the Vanguard, and beyond being one of the people behind the game, he is right to be excited.”
Bastions are an exciting element coming to EVE Vanguard, which will allow players, called Warclones, to congregate, meet other players, train and plan. This is where your MMO mechanics come into play. You can develop alliances, create new squads and learn a few new tricks from other players. During the September 16th Nemesis event, there will be NPC Bastions available, but come early access next summer, player Bastions will be available.
When it comes to actual gameplay, you will be able to customize your Warclone in the Warbarage. Here you can choose a skin you have collected from one of your many missions or cycle through your weapon loadout, and then you’ll head out on your first mission by deploying down to the surface. During their keynote, CCP called this “stepping into your casket to descend towards Hell.” I like it.
Missions will take you to just some of New Eden’s 68,000 planets, and will each be populated with different biomes, allowing for fresh, unique locations. EVE Vanguard was built on Unreal Engine 5, and CCP has used this to set up systems that help build the worlds, and then their developers tweak them to their liking. So far, I have seen rocky, dark terrain, littered with obstacles, and another red and black planet with water that would cause damage if you stepped in it.
Not only are the planets in EVE Vanguard filled with dangerous natural elements, but they also feature “Synthetic Nature.” The crashed ships from EVE Online have become a part of the worlds you explore, and it is up to you to navigate around these downed beasts. You will find yourself crawling through ships the same way you would a cave, gathering up as much as you can to send back up.
I spent a lot of my time in EVE Vanguard gathering materials and sending them up in a drone that I was able to craft from my inventory. This lets you avoid losing items if you die, and it is where the “extraction” similarities come in. If you die and you haven’t done this, you lose all you’ve gathered. The rest of your squad can use the drone as well, and items stay personal to you or them; it doesn’t become shared.
“I am looking forward to jumping into a lobby in EVE Vanguard with a full squad and actual people to interact with.”
Unfortunately, I only had a short time with EVE Vanguard, so I spent the majority of it testing out the combat and various weapons while I ran around the maps. I missed out on some crafting, but it looks like there will be plenty made available while on the go, like ammo. Each weapon has an alpha and beta mode, which allows each one to have two different sets of characteristics as well.
CCP Games is adamant that they are bringing back sci-fi shooters like we saw in the 90s and 00s. I can confidently say that EVE Vanguard is sci-fi to a tee. Whether you’re snatching up materials with your Mining Tool, taking out bots with your Mini Gun or running down Mordu’s Legion with a varity of ARs, SMGs, Pistols and more, the weapons feel like like fit perfectly in a space environment. The style, sound and firing animations capture the futuristic vibe that CCP Games is going for.
I am looking forward to jumping into a lobby in EVE Vanguard with a full squad and actual people to interact with. My experience so far has been positive in terms of combat, collection and exploration. With more than a year to go before early access, the promise of proximity chat and CCP’s constant communication with its players, I have a lot of faith in this MMOFPS and can’t wait to see more.
EVE Vanguard is hosting a Nemesis event on September 16, 2025, which you can join by signing up here. EVE Vanguard is heading into early access in the summer of 2025, on Steam and the EVE Launcher.
