EVE: Vanguard isn’t “just another generic shooter in an EVE skin,” promises CCP Games

“This is a marathon, not a sprint.” That might as well be the motto of CCP Games from what I’ve seen in my time at EVE Fanfest 2023. The term has come up in a documentary about the development of prize pig, EVE Online, in presentations about all the other projects the studio is working on, and – most commonly – when referring to the rollout of the newly-announced EVE Vanguard. EVE Vanguard, per Snorri Árnason (game director at CCP), is “an age-old dream CCP has been wanting to realise.” The developer tried to do this with Dust 514, the sort-of MMOFPS PS3 game that CCP and Sony worked together on, way back in 2013. But that shut down less than three years later, citing low player counts. Since then, Project Nova and Project Legion were concocted to fill this EVE-sized, FPS-shaped hole. Neither released.So, Vanguard. Árnason enthuses that this is CCP’s chance to finally “create a meaningful FPS experience” in the EVE universe. And from what I’ve seen so far, well, I think it has a chance to succeed. The first thing that’ll strike you about it are those absurd visuals. It’s not all smoke and mirrors, this; I saw it run, in real-time, as an actual game. It looks that good. Unreal Engine 5.2 does a lot of heavy lifting, and seeing Vanguard in action makes me even more excited about the future of the engine. Read more