I have kept it no secret that EVE Online seems wildly intimidating to me, no matter how many EVE FanFests I attend. However, EVE Vanguard has piqued my interest a few years in a row, and this July, they are finally ready to give players a “more professional” look at the first-person shooter after working out many of the kinks in pre-alpha. EVE Vanguard’s first alpha playtest, coined Operation Avalon, is coming from July 7-20 on Steam.
Ahead of the alpha, I was able to sit down with EVE Vanguard Game Director Scott Davis (FC Collins) and Creative Lead Jamie Stanton (FC Jayess), who are from Fenris Creations London, to learn more about what players will experience during the alpha. We were able to talk about everything from perfecting jump landings by jumping off windowsills in their office to including details so intricate in the game that players may never even see. One thing that stood out above all, though, was that EVE Vanguard is being built to hold its own as a standalone game, meaning more than just EVE Online players have something to look forward to here.
I chatted with Davis and Stanton a lot about EVE Online and how EVE Vanguard finally feels like something more my speed in the EVE universe, and the feeling was mutual. Davis spoke on how he understood that as a gamer, and that they have definitely taken it into consideration while building Vanguard. He shared a bit of his gaming insight with me: “I have found EVE Online an insurmountable Cliff. But I love the universe, and I want to be in that universe. And I want to be playing with all of these people. But I don’t really want to be playing their game.”
He went on to explain that he was interested in “being part of that universe in a way that I play games and it’s more accessible to me. Stick a gun in my hands…at the end of the day, when you boil it down, it’s, ‘Here’s a gun, shoot some things.’ And I resonate with that, that pleases my monkey brain.” Sometimes you don’t need to be deep in Excel spreadsheets for a video game; that just doesn’t appeal to everyone.
Davis spoke more on how people who don’t play EVE Online or EVE Frontier aren’t going to be lost with Vanguard, “You don’t have to necessarily care or be that involved in what’s actually happening on that side. The campaign system, it’s just complete objectives and get rewards. There are other people in another game also completing objectives and getting rewards, and you’re all moving the same tracker along. But you don’t have to worry about how they’re doing their objectives—well, you might want to care if they’re not doing it enough.”
Though Operation Avalon is going to be the first official alpha for EVE Vanguard, it is certainly not the first time that people have been hands-on with the game. I spoke to Scott and Jamie about seeing people at EVE FanFest playing the game, and it was really interesting to see their insight. The current build was about five weeks old, and they were seeing confirmation that changes they had already made were definitely needed, like fixing an issue with ammo scarcity.
This is one way Fenris Creations always amazes me with their development. They bring people in so early, and for many gamers, almost too early. But Davis explained something that really resonated with me. When other developers wait longer to play test, they are left with a lot of unknown variables: “I think when you’re playing the build every day, and you’re building the feature, you know how it should work, and you know what you should do with it. But then put it in front of somebody’s hands and go, without any explanation, ‘Do you think you can figure that out?’ It’s nice when it happens.”
“EVE Vanguard is being built to hold its own as a standalone game, meaning more than just EVE Online players have something to look forward to here.”
They receive constant feedback, allowing the final product to be something that makes sense to the player, not just the developers, which is incredibly important while building a game that is built in a world with over 20 years of history. It needs to make sense to everyone, not just EVE Online players or Fenris Creations.
In the conversation with Davis and Stanton, both chatted with us about how unique it is to be creating an FPS with EVE Vanguard in the EVE Online universe. But they made it their priority to make sure that Vanguard was worthwhile to non-EVE players. This was only made clearer with their pre-alphas, where they had hundreds of players drop down to the surface.
“We brought in a lot of EVE players and non-EVE players. A lot of the non-EVE players were playing things like ARC and Marathon at the moment. So it was a really good reference for us…We were talking about the economic link, and all the EVE players in the room were going like ‘Oh my God, I’m so excited for that,’” said Davis. “And there was secondhand excitement happening because all of the players who didn’t care about EVE Online were like, ‘Well, if they’re getting that excited about something I do in my game, like that’s not anything I could get anywhere else before.’”
Stanton reiterated his statement and went on to explain more, “There’s no other game that can copy it, right? And so even so, the hope is that even players who don’t want to play the EVE game [EVE Online] or don’t care about it, they still get something out of knowing that what they’re doing is having an effect and what is happening above them, this meta that’s happening above them is real, as opposed to in most games where there’s meta or people—every game can talk about factions, or you’re part of this great war, but you kind of know that you’re not really part of a great war. You’re just being told a narrative that you are—but in this game, you will actually be part of a part of this war.”
If that isn’t enough to intrigue FPS players who aren’t interested in the EVE Online universe per se, I have good news: Fenris Creations London is making a badass-looking FPS on its own with EVE Vanguard. Operation Avalon will only be one map, but the studio has set the tools up to allow easier building of new maps for such a small team. The full game will feature multiple maps with various challenges, and each will be unique with their own reasons to drop down.
Stanton mentioned that each will have a story behind them as well, “There’s a reason why you’re there that is coming from a narrative place. And then obviously you have your own reasons on top of that. Like, ‘I’m looking for this kind of blueprint’ or ‘I’m looking for this kind of resource that I need for my expedition.’”
“Fenris Creations London is making a badass-looking FPS on its own with EVE Vanguard.”
Stanton went on to explain what other things may differentiate between them: “We’ll create variants between the maps, and it could also be ‘I like this kind of gameplay. So I want to go to this map that has this kind of gameplay.’ or ‘This map is just kind of a chill mining map,’ or ‘Somewhere on this map there’s a spaceship that’s crashed, and I’m going to find it,’ or “This map is just a crazy sweaty PvP.’’ So there will be something for every kind of FPS player.
They also mentioned that players will find themselves in zones in each map that they just aren’t ready for yet, even referencing Dark Souls in terms of difficulty. They want you to learn the lesson once, go back out there, gear up and come back. This gives players something to look forward to and personal goals to achieve.
This isn’t the only place that a ton of thought has gone into EVE Vanguard, either. As I mentioned, Scott and Jamie told me a few stories about acting movements and weapons out in-office to get just the right look. They are certainly all in while designing the game.
When asked about what they are really looking forward to in EVE Vanguard, the weapons came up in detail. “I think the weapons are looking fantastic. We’ve got an amazing weapon artist [FC Kaenugard] working with us who’s made this Amarr DMR that got lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ yesterday, and he’s not even finished it yet.”
Davis agreed and went into more detail, “The level of detail that he’s going to, he’s actually modelling the inside mechanics of the weapons because that is just his bread and butter.” Stanton added, “There’s stuff no one will ever see, like the firing pins. It’s crazy.”
And it’s true, during the keynote we got to see some sexy versions of these weapons. Davis said, “I just want to emphasize the amount of detail that has gone into creating these weapons. This is the game asset. These are the textures of the weapon that you will be seeing, the grime, the scuffing, how this is how a Minmatar weapon should look.”
Their love of the weapons is no secret, but where both devs really lit up was when talking about how players will extract from EVE Vanguard. It was interesting to hear the amount of thought that was behind it. Davis was ecstatic telling me about it when I asked what his favourite piece of EVE Vanguard was: “My answer is this is the burning up in the extraction. Like, we could have just had you climb inside of something, and you fly away, or we just cut to black or something like that. But this man going, ‘No, no, no, what if you just get burnt up alive every time?’”
He alluded to the idea coming from FC Jayess, Jamie Stanton himself. What interested me more, though, was where the conversation went from there. It wasn’t just an arbitrary design choice; Fenris Creations London put a ton of thought into every choice they make with EVE Vanguard. “We’ve worked really hard, all of us, to establish the identity of the game and set some rules about what that means. So it’s supposed to be brutal and violent, and the Vanguard are dangerous and terrifying. Once you establish those rules, then you can’t get into a lift, you know?” said Stanton.
He went on to discuss how the universe affects every choice they make, “They’re the most fun conversations, where we’re talking about—it doesn’t matter what it is. It’s like, how do these guys heal themselves? How do these guys rez each other? You know? Because it can’t just be I can’t just put my hands on you and some magic green stuff.” Davis had some thoughts of his own, too: “Do they have adrenaline pens in 21,000 years in the future? No! Maybe they have defibrillators built into their suits!”
Whether you’re someone who has subbed into the EVE Online universe already, have been curious for years, or are just someone looking for a new extraction shooter—I know, there are many—EVE Vanguard is bringing something to the table. The team is incredibly passionate; they understand how intimidating the universe is, and what is probably most important is that they just love good games.
To try it out yourself, EVE Vanguard is hosting Operation Avalon, their first alpha playtest, from July 7-20th on Steam. Players can turn in their capsuleer hats to become Vanguards in just a couple of weeks! For those interested in the EVE community, you can join the EVE Vanguard Discord, with over 14,000 members already, before the alpha has even launched. You can follow their official website for more information.
