// PC GAMER — GAMING
'I think we'd accidentally created the most hardcore extraction game of all time:' EVE Vanguard is taking hard-won playtest lessons into a '24/7 Alpha'
It's not early access, not yet. Super-early access.
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Tomorrow, November 10, EVE Online is releasing a new expansion, Fractured Skies, and companion FPS EVE Vanguard is going into something Fenris Creations is calling a 24/7 alpha. Formal early access on Steam is coming late next year, but you can buy the game and play it through EVE's own client—and it won't go away like prior playtests.
Tomorrow will also see Vanguard start to fulfill its promise as a linked game to EVE Online—completing contracts in the multiplayer FPS will create military campaign opportunities players can find and act on in EVE—marking the return of a dream Fenris (formerly CCP Games) has pursued since the ill-fated PS3 shooter, Dust 514. I sat down with Vanguard game director Scott Davis and EVE design director Greg Hennessey to talk about what's coming tomorrow and further down the line.
From a pure gameplay perspective, Davis told me that NPC AI and new player onboarding are the biggest improvements in Vanguard since its last playtest. The NPC enemies inhabiting Vanguard's levels just weren't challenging enough, and while it's easy to make them better shots, the problem was more one of tactical depth.
"We had a lot of people bounce off the game pretty hard in July," Davis said of the other issue, Vanguard's new player experience. "I think we'd accidentally created the most hardcore extraction game of all time, because we had some awkward intricacies to how weapon upgrading and healing worked in the game." There will be more direct tutorializing to address this in tomorrow's Alpha, and a lot of thought has also gone into how Vanguard introduces its modes to players.
New players will be introduced through a full co-op/PvE mode, which will then unlock the PvEvP from the last playtest. The final mode sounds the most exciting and unique, though: Davis described it as a PvP-first "3v3v3 procedurally generated labyrinth, where you just go in and only one team can get out alive."
That sounds sick, and reminds me a bit of Marathon's Cryo Archive pinnacle activity. I'm encouraged by the variety of playstyle options Vanguard is offering: Marathon seems to have ultimately been sunk by its pure focus on hardcore PvP, while Vanguard might have an advantage attracting and holding a healthy playerbase with such varied modes.
The back of the box pitch for Vanguard is that what happens in the FPS will impact EVE Online's one-of-a-kind digital economy, and vice versa. I keep saying it's like the jocks (FPS guys) teaming up with the nerds (spreadsheet EVE guys), and people generally smile politely when I do.
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