About 2 hours ago the servers shut down, bringing a close to our first taste of Vanguard. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and am impressed with how functional the game is seeing as we have only known about its existence for a few short months.
I am very experienced in FPS games, with most of my game time outside of Eve Online coming from Apex Legends. I invited my Apex friends to join me for the test and they were also surprised with its functionality this early in development. Overall I logged about 3-4 hours on the game over the weekend and here is what I have come up with:
Environment
The crashed Bowhead freighter was a very exciting and dramatic place to be. It screamed Eve from its scale, it’s sounds, and it’s creepy clones spread all over the map. The graphics were very good overall, though my friends and I couldn’t help but laugh when we looked at each other walk. The movement animations could use some work to be on par with the world around them.
Combat mechanics
The firefights I got into felt very good at mid-range. In close range scenarios they felt a little clunky and with the wreckage having lots of small enclosed spaces I found myself wishing I had another weapon or grenade. At far range the weapon was difficult but still useable, with my farthest kill on a player being at around 200 meters out (he was AFK). I think the biggest problem with the combat is the weapons ADS or HUD. It’s wide FOV and seemingly infinite range means I found myself using it more as a scanner than a weapon sight. For me, it gives away too much information and spoils the sense of mystery, any sense of stealth or skill. I feel this should be ditched for more traditional weapon optics, and a separate utility item put in place for surveying the area around you.
Contracts
I felt that the contracts in the game were decently fun to complete, and they each had me traveling around the map to new unexplored areas. However, they all lacked a sense of importance. I didn’t really know why I needed to complete them or why they mattered in the end. I think in order for the game to be successful, this needs to be addressed and the sense of how this all ties into Eve Online cranked up to max.
Extractions
Extracting from the map was way to easy in my opinion. I was expecting it to be very dramatic but in actuality it was just us standing in a circle after 30 seconds. It shouldn’t be impossible to do, but it needs to be a little harder than it was. I was never attacked while extracting and each time I saw another team extracting, I could not get to the site quick enough to fight them. In a final game, I would really like to see an actual ship or extraction vessel drop from the sky and your team to load onboard.
Summary
A fun game with a lot of potential and good bones. I can’t wait to see where it goes and hopefully, see it integrated into Eve Online closely.