EVE Vanguard is shaping up as a solid extraction shooter even before its MMO crossover features arrive

EVE Vanguard — the extraction shooter spinoff from EVE Online developer CCP Games, now built by Fenris Creations — has reached a point in its alpha where it stands on its own as a genuinely good FPS, even without the ambitious cross-game integration that defines its long-term vision.

The current alpha playtest, called Operation Avalon, is the third public test of the game and takes the first concrete steps toward linking Vanguard with EVE Online through a concurrent in-game event. Game director Scott Davis, speaking at EVE Fanfest, described the end goal as a self-sustaining player-driven campaign — one where EVE's corporations and alliances shape the war on the ground. "The lead designers on EVE Online, they don't describe themselves as 'dungeon masters.' They describe themselves as 'caretakers,'" Davis said. "What if everyone just decides to go and enlist with one empire? They completely snowball the campaign? We're like, that'd be fucking cool." For now, though, the authored content is doing the heavy lifting, and it holds up. The map rewards exploration over waypoint-following, the guns feel sharp — standout being a charge-up laser sniper rifle with a Halo Covenant aesthetic — and even the default loaner assault rifle is fun to shoot despite a punishingly slow reload. The game drops you into deployment fast, skipping the lengthy onboarding that bogs down games like Warhammer 40K: Darktide.

Vanguard carries the spiritual legacy of Dust 514, CCP's 2013 PS3-exclusive FPS that tried to tie ground combat into EVE Online's galactic economy. That game never found its footing — partly due to the platform exclusivity — but the core idea never died. Fenris Creations, the studio that grew out of that project, has spent years trying to get the formula right, and Operation Avalon suggests the foundation is finally solid enough to build on.

The cross-game integration with EVE Online is still largely theoretical at this stage, but Fenris has a track record of delivering on unconventional ideas. If the studio can layer that MMO connective tissue onto what is already a competent and immediately fun extraction shooter, Vanguard could carve out a genuinely unique space in a crowded genre.