Yes. EVE Vanguard’s 24/7 paid alpha is live now on PC, and the $15 Resonant Pack buys permanent access through full release. No EVE Online subscription is required, and the alpha runs around the clock through the EVE Launcher — no more waiting for the next playtest weekend.
If you have followed EVE Online for any length of time, you know the pattern with its shooters. Dust 514 lived and died on the PlayStation 3. Project Nova was announced, shown off, and quietly shelved. A healthy dose of skepticism about an EVE FPS is earned. Vanguard is the attempt that finally looks built to last: not a limited event, not a tech demo, but a live alpha that stays online from day one, with a published roadmap running into 2027.
What is actually in the alpha right now
This is not an empty test shell. The November alpha build expands Vanguard significantly over its earlier limited playtests, and the additions touch nearly every part of the loop.
- Three new maps spanning New Eden’s security levels, so the ground war ranges from relatively tame highsec worlds to lawless lowsec battlegrounds.
- The Gallente BR-60 Battle Rifle, the headline new weapon, alongside deeper weapon progression through the new Weapon Telemetry system — your guns now develop as you use them.
- A refreshed tutorial and a new Vanguard suit, aimed at getting first-time warclones into a real fight faster instead of burying them in menus.
- Persistent progression. Because the alpha never goes offline, you build your arsenal and develop your warclone over time instead of starting over at every playtest window.
The pitch is simple. You are a warclone — an immortal ground soldier in the same single universe as the capsuleers overhead. You drop onto planets, fight through battlegrounds, complete contracts and expeditions, and extract with what you can carry. It is an extraction-adventure shooter, which means the tension is not just winning the firefight; it is getting out alive with the loot.
How much it costs — and what the packs actually are
Access is sold only through the EVE Launcher, and every Founder’s Pack includes permanent access: alpha now, full release later, no repurchase. The entry tier is the one most players should look at.
- Resonant Pack — $15. The access tier: permanent access through full release, a Resonant Key, the Deployment-Ready Bundle of weapons, grenades and gear, the Keshik M247 blueprint, and a support crafter blueprint.
- Contraband Packs — $30 each. Add-on packs layered on top of access, for players who want extra gear and cosmetics.
- Fulcrum Pack — $100. The committed-founder tier, bundling more content for players going all-in early.
- Legacy Pack — $514. The whale tier. It exists. You do not need it to play.
Two money details matter. First, Vanguard access is separate from Omega — your EVE Online subscription does not include it, and Vanguard does not require one. Second, $15 for permanent access is priced like a magazine subscription, not a $70 launch. Fenris is clearly buying a population for its alpha, and for players that is a genuinely low-risk way in.
Alpha means alpha. Fenris is explicit that this is an in-development build — bugs included — and it is not yet at the Steam Early Access milestone. If you need a finished, polished shooter today, wait. If you want in early while the game is being shaped, that is exactly what the $15 buys.
The ground war now feeds the war in space
Here is the part that makes Vanguard different from every previous EVE shooter: November 10 established the first permanent connection between the two games. Completed Vanguard contracts and expeditions increase the special campaign sites appearing in EVE Online’s highsec and lowsec space. What warclones do on the ground creates opportunities for capsuleers in orbit — around the clock, not just during an event weekend.
That connection launched alongside Fractured Skies, EVE Online’s winter expansion and the second chapter of its Theatres of War trilogy, which also arrived November 10. Fractured Skies is context here rather than the main story, but it is relevant context: its four empire Military Campaigns are exactly the kind of space-side conflict Vanguard activity now feeds, ahead of a four-way empire showdown in January and the first seasonal Conquests in February 2027. The ground and space games are being marched toward the same war.
Where Vanguard goes next
Q2 2027: Warclones enlist directly in Factional Warfare — the ground game plugs into EVE’s empire-versus-empire system, and Vanguard players take a formal role in Conquest objectives. Q3 2027: Steam Early Access is the planned next milestone. Until then, the EVE Launcher is the only way in.
Treat both dates as targets, not promises — Fenris itself flags the roadmap as subject to change while the game is in alpha. The servers, meanwhile, are up now, 24/7.
For the lapsed capsuleer, this is the easy way back
Plenty of former EVE players are in the same spot: years in New Eden, real affection for the universe, and no longer the hours a fleet life demands. EVE Online asks for spreadsheets, schedules, and a corporation that notices when you disappear. Vanguard asks for a dropship and twenty minutes.
Verdict: At $15 for permanent access, EVE Vanguard is the lowest-commitment way back into New Eden that has ever existed — no Omega required, no playtest window to catch, and a ground war that finally counts toward the war in space. It is an alpha, with an alpha’s rough edges. But the door is open, it stays open, and for once the EVE shooter is not going anywhere.
