For anyone under the illusion that players will engage in firefights on the surface of planets affecting factional warfare or pirate insurgencies sometime in 2024, the roadmap CCP published on Friday is probably discouraging news. For those with a little more patience, I think the news was pretty good.
I do want to point out Vanguard is much further along than CCP's last attempt at a first person shooter game, Project Nova. That game was first shown at EVE Vegas in 2018, and the reception was so bad the game was shelved. Now CCP will conduct playtests every month through June. An improvement at the very least.
In the article, CCP summarized the development steps for the first half of 2024.
The first half of 2024 will be action-packed for Vanguard, with different kinds of updates for various playtest events. In January, February, April and May, these events will focus on minor patch updates, primarily centred around bug fixes and balancing changes. March will bring a minor feature update, and we look forward to a major feature update in June.
In addition to the aforementioned fixes and balance changes, increased support for players from Asia Pacific and South America will start in January, with dedicated servers in those regions opening the door to a new wave of Vanguard warclones. The March playtest event will provide players with a mining feature prototype, introducing the ability to mine for resources and complete new contract types. The goal is to also introduce the ability to contribute to suppression in this update. Around this time, the Vanguard may also get to test a new drop suit.
The playtest in June will introduce a new battlefield with a new map, which we will introduce in more detail as we get closer to that moment. At this time, a weapon modification feature will be introduced, and fittings will be persistent across sessions, meaning there will be more options to tool up, modify, and upgrade your weaponry before and after deployment. The plan is to build upon the mining prototype, introduced in the March patch, adding further objectives and activities.
I don't know how many maps Vanguard will launch with, but I have to believe two isn't enough. If the number is 4-6, I could see CCP announce at Fanfest 2025 the launch of first person shooter play, with fully integrated play with the spaceship portion of the game in the Winter 2025 expansion. Perhaps my estimate is too optimistic, but I can really can't see CCP linking the start of Vanguard to the 10th anniversary of DUST 514's shutdown date of 30 May 2016. Or would they?
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