Monthly Archives: February 2026

The EVE Online 2026 Roadmap – Faction Warfare Focus for Three Expansions and Vanguard Delayed

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Over the next three expansions, we’re going all in on Theatres of War, expanding Factional Warfare and formalizing Military Campaigns as a core part of EVE’s future

-CCP Director’s Letter

Last week I did a round up of 2026 roadmaps, but EVE Online hadn’t posted one yet.  So I substituted in a mock up that somebody did on Reddit back when the 2025 roadmap dropped.

EVE Online 2026 Roadmap Prediction

With that on the line, CCP then decided to post their 2026 roadmap yesterday, because that is always the way these things work out.  So how do the two roadmaps match up?

The EVE Online 2026 Roadmap

First off, it is tiny.  If you strip off the boarder fluff, as I did, it is only about 800×330 pixels.

Is there nobody in the are department that could get them a 1920×1080 version to post?  Are they afraid that we’ll be able to read it or something?  Or is the community team concerned about using up drive space for the web site?  Seriously, go HD size or go home man.

Anyway, almost everything listed on the Reddit mock-up aligns with something on the actual 2026 roadmap.

So, for Q1 we do have an update to Catalyst, the most recent expansion, Q2 lines up 100% with Fanfest, Capsuleer Day, and the Q2 (no longer summer) expansion.  Q3 has the alliance tournament feeders, but lacks the expected update (read “finish”) the Q2 expansion entry, and Q4 lines up exactly with the Q4 expansion, the alliance tournament, Crimson Harvest and the Winter Nexus.

So the prediction was 9 for 10 on items it showed, with one being omitted.

But there are 15 items on the actual 2026 roadmap, so what are the 6 new and/or unexpected items?  Well, only four of them are related to EVE Online.

For Q1 2026, in addition the the update to Catalyst we have:

  • EVE Evolved
  • Gallente Election

As explained in the post accompanying the roadmap, EVE Evolved are points where we will see graphical updates to the game outside of the normal expansion cycle.  Those are generally good and the art team has rarely let us down.  I still miss the old Cormorant model and I am still adapting to the new Scythe/Scimitar model, but the game looks better and better as the years go on.

Meanwhile the Gallente Election… looks to be an in-game lore event, possibly connected to Faction Warfare?  [Edit: Lore link from the comments.] One of the big statements in the post, which I quoted at the top of the post, is that CCP will be focused on Faction Warfare for the next three expansions.  They are going to make low sec work no matter how long it takes!

For Q2 2026 the only change is calling the expansion the Q2 Expansion and not the Summer Expansion, probably so pedants like me will stop pointing out “well akshully summer in the northern hemisphere starts at the summer solstice,” and honestly I can respect that.

When we come to Q3 we have another EVE Evolved update, so more better graphics as the new entry for EVE Online.  and then the CSM Elections, something not mentioned in 2025. We’ll get to the other entry on its own.

  • EVE Evolved
  • CSM Elections

And when we arrive at Q4 the EVE Online entries are the same, the alliance tournament, and expansion, and the two usual events.

So 4 of the 6 new items are two graphical updates and two elections, one Gallente and one for the CSM.  We’ll see what the former ends up being, but I recall some lore item about the current Gallente president being in trouble.  Or maybe I dreamt it.

Which leaves the two other items, both related to EVE Vanguard.  Those are two events related to CCP’s desperate desire to make an FPS game like the other cool kids… which trying to tie it into EVE Online, something that worked out so well last time.

As part of that we got this tidbit:

EVE Vanguard’s Steam Early Access release is moving beyond Summer 2026

So it is being pushed out again.  Will that been autumn or winter for early access?  We shall see.

In summary the roadmap and supporting post says:

  • Faction Warfare is all the game designers are focused on
  • The art team is still there for us
  • Otherwise, business as usual for New Eden events

There is also an accompanying video of CCP Rattati, CCP Burger, and CCP Okami talking about all of this.

I was going to listen to that but then they started off in the usual style of non-stop self-congratulation and… I’m just tired of that routine.  So maybe there was some useful information in the video, or maybe it just the usual patting themselves on the back before diving into the shooter game they would apparently much rather have than EVE Online.  I’ll never know because I don’t have the patience for it anymore.

And so it goes in New Eden.

Related:

Ashes of Creation – The Kickstarter Curse Set to Claim Another Project

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These are our promises to you:

*To continue our open development process with you, our backers, on our website and Discord channels.

*And finally, in the case that Ashes of Creation does NOT launch, we promise to refund all backers in full.

–Ashes of Creation Kickstarter Campaign

So, does going early access on Steam count as a launch?  My guess is that the heads of Intrepid Studios are going to say yes.  Of course, who is running the show currently is an open question.

Coming Soon – The Ashes of the Ashes of Creation

Rumors started running on Saturday night, fueled by Steven Sharif announcing on the official Discord that he was resigning, that the studio was facing a massive layoff, and that the game was effectively going to be shut down.  Sharif posted:

I can make a limited statement in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the company, regarding the situation.  Control of the company shifted away from me, and the Board began directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out. As a result, I chose to resign in protest rather than lend my name or authority to decisions I could not ethically support. Following my resignation, much of the senior leadership team resigned. Following those departures, the Board made the decision to issue WARN Act notices and proceed with a mass layoff. I cannot responsibly speak to further details at this time due to ongoing legal and governance matters. What I can say is that the developers and staff acted in good faith and deserved better than the uncertainty they are now facing. I am incredibly dismayed by the situation.

Was he giving us advanced notice of the bad news or merely trying to preserve his reputation in the face of a poor turn of events?  He has aggressively tried to control the narrative in the past, demanding a retraction of an article over at PC Gamer when the site questioned (and verified with Kickstarter) changes to their referral program.  Not his only bit of drama, but one that sprang to mind for me.

So color me skeptical of any story he is pushing until it has something of substance backing to it, because I sure didn’t see any viral warning posts from him about ethics two months ago when Ashes of Creation went to early access on Steam.

Quite the opposite.  This move was to expand their audience.

So now we have the MMO with the highest Kickstarter backing amount going tits up and apparently having put in the effort to get onto Steam to avoid having to pay refunds… not that they would have in any case.  That promise was as empty as any corporate promise known to man.

A reminder of the backing hall of fame:

Of those, only Project: Gorgon can likely be deemed a full success, having arrived at a launch and delivering as promised… more than promised really.

Yes, Shroud of the Avatar got shoved out the door when Lord British, only tangentially involved at best, got bored of the whole thing and walked away.  So it did, in fact, ship.  But if you believe that SotA is the spiritual successor to the Ultima series that was promised by the addled brained Richard Garriott, then I fear either him or you… or possibly both… have an extremely low opinion of that series.

Then there is Star Citizen, a financial success by any accounting.  It has made Chris Roberts rich.  It is, however, still in protective alpha status, so as to deflect criticism of missing features and broken promises.  It will get credit when it says it is live and not a day before.

And the rest of that list… Crowfall crowfell back in 2022, never to return, while Mark Jacobs keeps delaying the inevitable public failure of Camelot Unchained by finding more suckers to fund him.

There are others, of course.  Those are just the big ones to which I have paid some attention.  I commented on an article elsewhere about the low success rate of Kickstarted MMORPGs… and then one of the four “successes,” Dual Universe, went offline after that.

It did so in the most graceful way possible, but it still could not maintain itself as a live service title.

Granted, the video game industry in general, and the MMORPG niche in particular, is in something of a crisis with investors bailing, games being shut down or cancelled, and the threat of AI slop destroying the value of it all hanging over everything.

But not you Stars Reach, I’m sure you’ll be just fine!  (At least until we see the actual business model.)

Anyway!

Ashes of Creation looks to be joining the list of failed Kickstarter backed MMO projects will be a mere footnote in the history of the genre.  It would have been better to have been cancelled before any public viewing.  At least then you get to be the subject of awful, weak tea simperings about great MMOs killed before their time.

I swear, every article that laments Project Copernicus or Project Blackbird or Blizzard’s cancelled Titan project sets my teeth on edge as somebody spins a fairy tale about how great these projects they never touched would have been.

There will be no such lasting idolatry of Ashes of Creation.  Over on Steam its reviews have been mixed, with slightly less than half of those bothering to review giving the title a thumbs up.

Ashes of Creation on Steam

And that was on Sunday morning, before the news had really hit and sunk in.  If you go to the game’s page on Steam now you’ll find that the reviews have gone downhill since then, landing the recent reviews section in the “mostly negative” camp.

The latest director’s letter to the “citizens of Verra”, published late last week, was an address to player complaints about bugs, design, and botting issues, with a promise of a Twitch update on February 13 to go over the path forward.  I doubt we’ll be getting that now.

In the midst of all of this, as I am writing, the game itself remains available for purchase on Steam, no doubt a forgotten detail in all the internal drama at Intrepid.  I mean, they wouldn’t deliberately try to collect revenue on a title that was going to shut down, would they?

Addendum: The ability to purchase the title looks to have been removed at some point on Monday afternoon.

Addendum: There is also some question as to who the “board” consists of if not Steven Sharif.

Related:

Project: Gorgon – Learning to do All the Things… Including Death

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After the big 1.0 update for Project: Gorgon I went in and played a bit more.

Project: Gorgon – It Lives!

On Friday night I was definitely feeling the pain of the launch announcement rush.  They had cranked up the number of mobs spawning, but there were still parts of the first island where you couldn’t hit a mob that just spawned because it would be dead before you could target it.

In those locations, especially close to the dock where you first land, the increased spawn rate wasn’t covering the need.  But then, further out, where there were fewer people, the spawn rate meant a bunch of mobs showing up and killing you pretty quickly.

Skeletons a poppin!

All of this reminded me of a Python quote:

Blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought!

–Dennis Moore

So it goes.  This will all be alleviated by the second… and now third… server as well as when the initial rush subsides.  But on Friday it was all one server.

Back and new I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do.  Sure, that tower right above the dock seemed like an obvious stop.  And, later on, I would figure out that it was a place to start, because that is where Elmetaph is, who has some intro quests.  The problem, for me, was that his name plate did not stand out at all relative to the mass of people in the tower.  There is, to my old eyes at least, no differentiation in font size or coloration.

His name in a small group

And the quick answer to that image is that he is obviously taller than everybody else, is dressed different, and when you mouse over him the cursor changes… which is all correct.  But I took that screen shot after the new server went up and the crowds at the original server subsided a bit.

On Friday night he was more like this.

You’d think he was one of the Beatles

In that scrum it was hard to even get your cursor to select him, so I initially gave up. [I later found the ability to turn off player name plates, which made NPCs much easier to find.]

I spent time wandering around killing mobs when I could.  I had, whenever I had rolled up this character, picked up a full set of moldy armor and a sword.  Or maybe they just gave it to me after a pwipe or update?  I don’t know.

Anyway, I quickly noticed that just fighting things gained me points toward my sword skill and endurance and, every so often, would add a new skill to my bar.

A nice new way to slay

One of the other things going on with the Friday night rush was people dropping gear all over.  You do not appear to be able to destroy or trash or whatever stuff in your inventory, at least not on the starter island, which led to people just tossing stuff all over.

Dropped gear all over

There were even some upgrades.  I did see that I needed to do some unarmed combat in order to equip some of it.  That necessitated learning how to equip and unequip gear, which isn’t just a matter of dragging it back and forth from your inventory.  Your equipped gear remains in your bag, with a little “E” superimposed to let you know its status.

I managed to unequip my sword after a couple tries and went after some easy stuff using the punch skill.  That leveled up my unarmed skill fairly quickly and got me the Kick skill, which I could use while I had my sword equipped to keep the ball rolling on that.

I also grabbed a shovel from the barrel and started burying my corpses, which upped my compassion skill.  Not sure what that does, but I figured I had better level up all the things, just in case.

Eventually, however, I decided I was missing something and went to the wiki to look up the starter zones, Anagoge Island, where it was quite clear I needed to go talk to Elmetaph in the tower.  This got me a quest to go find some amethysts, which I already had due to the killing of things, which was followed up by attuning myself to the teleport pad on the island, which seemed to be the way out of the starter zone.

I don’t know why I was in a hurry to get out of the starter zone.  I tend to regret such haste.  But what else was I going to do.

I did that, then went back and found out I had been attuned to that pad as my home spot, so needed to gather some info so Elmetaph could attune me to a remote pad so I could go there.  That meant finding four obelisks, which on a small island should have been easy, but I swear I went around the island five times before I finally spotted the fourth one.

In search of that I ended up down in the records facility, which had its own puzzles to solve… I only caught fire once due to failing at simple math (don’t add them, subtract them)… which also got me some additional skills and a bow and a stack of arrows.

Soon I was killing mobs, doing an autopsy, skinning their corpses, and burying them.

I am a regular Jack Klugman

I started to grumble a bit at people who didn’t loot their corpses… if they were going to leave them there at least let me practice my skills as a medical examiner.

I also wandered into Lawara, who has tasks of her own and, more importantly, is in the camp where the porridge is served.

Lawara and the food pot

That pot was important because the game was absolutely on my ass about eating.  At one point, when I had low health after a fight I went to /sit thinking maybe that might help with health regen… and got a pointed dialog popping up that said we don’t sit here for regen, we eat food.  Go find some food.

So I was happy to eat the porridge, if only to get the game off my back.  It was getting to be like my grandmother.  Are you hungry?  You haven’t eaten anything.  You should eat, you’re so thin and look at how slow your health bar fills up.

I am assuming I’ll learn some cooking skills at some future point.  I was grabbing crabs out of the water, which increased my fishing skill, in the hope of making my own awful porridge some day.

Eventually I stumbled upon the last obelisk and, having written down the numbers in the correct order as I had noted them in my quest notebook, relayed them to Elmetaph.  He asked if I was sure, and I said I was, and then he attuned me and sent me back to the teleport pad to try it out.

I did and… it sent me to Gazluk, a bitterly cold place where I was immediately warned I would freeze to death shortly.  So maybe I got the obelisk sequence wrong.

Oh dear, I have none of that

But I did not have to worry about the cold for very long as a I was slain almost immediately by a wandering horrific ghost, who one-shotted me.

Eww, removed my organs?

The respawn point on death was not very close to the teleport pad, and it felt like I needed that teleport pad to get back.  It looked like the pad was far enough away that I would most likely freeze to death before I could get there.  I certainly did not get close on several attempts.

Running back to the pad on the map

This was hindered by the fact that everything in the zone… the wiki says it requires combat skills of 70-80 to survive… killed me in one or two blows.  Polar bear, mountain goat, they all had my number.

So I died a bunch of times.

The respawn point was next to a portal, but when I went through that I ended up in the Kur Mountains, also freezing and also way above my ability to cope with.

Fearing I may have wrecked that character, stuck in the snow in a Groundhog Day death cycle, I logged off and did some things around the house.  Later I came back and decided to go to the Kur Mountains because at least that was different.

I died there as well.  But when I died it respawned me near a portal that said it would send me to Elibule.

Travel to Eltibule? Yes please!

On the far side of that portal I was at least not freezing.

I was at an outpost with a teleport pad, so I went to that and… well… my only skills were to bind to a pad and recall to the pad to which I was bound… and my bind point was back in Gazluk.  So I checked the wiki again and Eltibule was connected at its south end to Serbule, which is the zone where you go after the starter island.

I now had some hope.

Of course, Eltibule was also too high level for me and I died a couple of times on the way, learning to steer clear of all mobs… though I did pick up some random gear on the ground.

Potshot had logged on my then and had a character in Serbule, so I made it a goal to get to him.  You can’t group up or friend list somebody not nearby, so that would have to wait.  After some mild misadventures, I made it to the portal.

Travel to Serbule? Sure thing!

I got in sight of the main town in the center of the map, at which point we were close enough to group up.

Is the princess in this castle?

Then I could see Potshot on the map.

Visible on the map now

I had to run around the wall to find a door, eventually going in the south entrance, where I found a teleport pad and immediately bound myself to it.

I think this is where I should have ended up in the first place, had I not mis-entered the code.

Anyway, I took the long way to the next zone by misadventure, though at least I arrived at my planned destination.  It was all very good for my cartography skill.  I got a lot of updates for that.  And, of course, my dying skill.

Now to figure out what to do now that I have arrived.

TAGN Fantasy Critic League 2026 – Week Five as Momentum Builds

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We are starting to get into the cycle of weekly releases and news updates around titles.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

This week we had two titles set to launch.  But first, it is time to resume the usual pattern of these posts, which starts with putting up last week’s scores so we can compare that with what happened.

Week 4 Scores

First, as a bit of a follow up, I have been checking in on the title I dropped last time, Highguard, that was supposed to launch this past week.  It finally got enough reviews to get a score… of 62!

Highguard Rating: Weak

So I feel like I dodged a bullet there, but was the game that “meh?”  There is a long article over at The Aftermath that describes the travails of Highguard if you are interested.

Continuing from last week, Shintar, Ula, and Nimgimli all had a title on the board. We saw some score adjustments on those since the last post.

  • Arknights: Endfield
    • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
    • Score has gone UP from 78.9 to 80
  • Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 89.3 to 87
  • Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 87.0 to 85.5

As I suggested last week, Woolhaven‘s initial score was based on just four reviews, so seeing some fluctuation was expected.

For week five Shintar and Nimgimli were due for a second score with Cairn landing on the 29th and Code Vein II on the 30th.

Code Vein II

Updates landed for the latter first.

  • Code Vein II
    • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
    • Now has a score of 76.9
  • Code Vein II
    • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
    • Score has gone DOWN from 77.2 to 70.8
  • Code Vein II
    • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
    • Score has gone UP from 70.8 to 74.2
  • Code Vein II
    • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
    • Score has gone UP from 74.1 to 75.1

That is normal behavior when reviews are coming in.  Not a great score, but not negative… and enough to move Nimgimli up to second place after the release.

  • Publisher Score Updates
    • Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)
      • Score has gone UP from 10.0 to 15.1
      • Moved from 3rd place to 2nd place
    • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
      • Moved from 2nd place to 3rd place

Then there was Cairn, which was also getting reviews but somehow wasn’t hooked up correctly to the league.  It went live and had a couple dozen reviews on Open Critic, but had no score.

Cairn

Anyway, somebody kicked the server and that got addressed Thursday morning when a score finally arrived.

  • Cairn
    • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]
    • Now has a score of 86.9

Anything over 85 is a good score in my book.  The variation in scoring methods… there are sites that do zero to five with no half points, so you can get a 100 or an 80 out of them… tends to suppress anything higher than 90 unless it is truly exceptional.

Anyway, Shintar was already in first place… so now she is even more in first place I guess, with the scoreboard looking like this at the end of the week.

Week 5 Scores

Shintar remains projected for first place as well… but Potshot, with nothing shipped yet, gets the second place prediction.

This week also saw more drops, bids, and counter picks.

  • Drops in TAGN League
    • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais):
      • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake (Drop Successful)
    • Anthania Interactive (Ula):
      • Pokémon Generation 10 (Unannounced) (Drop Successful)

Prince of Persia was cancelled, so almost a required drop, while a 10th gen Pokemon game… I’d have to hear something official before I credited it.  A safe drop for now unless the next Nintedo Direct announces it.

  • Bids in TAGN League
    • Denshattack!
      • Won by S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t) with a bid of $6
    • There Are No Ghosts at the Grand
      • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $3
    • Kiln
      • Won by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr) with a bid of $6
    • Unannounced Fallout 3 Re-Something
      • Won by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli) with a bid of $5
        • Dropped game ‘Lords of the Fallen II’ conditionally
      • Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)’s bid of $5 did not succeed: Bid lost on tiebreakers.
    • Invincible VS
      • Won by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn) with a bid of $1
    • Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet
      • Won by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) with a bid of $1
    • Coven of the Chicken Foot
      • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $3
    • WWE 2K26
      • Won by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) with a bid of $1

A lot of action in the picks as some people have decided that a buck won’t do it if you really want something I guess.  Still, there was a $5 roll-off tiebreaker for… checks notes… an unannounced Fallout 3 remake/remaster/re-whatever.

Did somebody get some news that I missed?  Or will there be a race to counter pick that next week?

  • Counter Picks in TAGN League
    • Bradley the Badger
      • Won by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar) with a bid of $2 (🎯 Counter Pick)

Finally, Shintar is betting against Bradley the Badger.  Seems legit given I have no idea what that game is about… save that it may involve a badger named Bradley.

Then we got some updated release dates.

  • Scott Pilgrim EX
    • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Early 2026’ to ‘Tuesday, March 03, 2026’.
  • Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream
    • [Picked by Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Spring 2026’ to ‘Thursday, April 16, 2026’.

Two more titles with dates nailed down… for now.

That leaves us with the next ten games to be released looking like this.

Coming Up for Week 6

We will have two titles launching next week on Thursday and Friday, with Corr and Cyanbane getting on the score board.  Then, the following week the scoreboard will be lighting up with six releases.

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