About this video

• Video Title: Directors' Letter Chat: 2026 & Beyond
• Channel: EVE Online
• Speakers: CCP Swift, CCP Rotati, CCP Burger, CCP Okami, CCP Collins
• Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes 45 seconds

Overview

This video features EVE Online developers discussing their vision for the game in 2026 and beyond. They reflect on the success of recent expansions, detail their content development cadence with expansions and major updates, and outline future plans, with a significant focus on improving the new player experience, enhancing faction warfare with "military campaigns," and evolving existing game systems like carriers. They also touch upon the development of EVE Vanguard, its upcoming alpha phase, and its connection to EVE Online.

Key takeaways

• Post-Catalyst Expansion Success: The Catalyst expansion, despite being focused on mining, has been highly successful, leading to increased player activity, fleet engagement, and positive economic indicators. New mining ships are well-received, and some players have even found alternative uses for them.
• Development Cadence: EVE Online follows a schedule of two major expansions per year, supplemented by "major updates" in between. Major updates focus on game balance, meta adjustments, and rebalancing older content, allowing for iterative improvements.
• Player-Driven Development: The developers emphasize a strong, collaborative relationship with the Community (CSM) and players, valuing their feedback and using community-generated manifestos to guide development.
• Focus on New Player Experience: A significant focus for 2026 and beyond is improving the onboarding and retention of new players, making the game more approachable while preserving its depth.
• Faction Warfare Overhaul: The introduction of "military campaigns" aims to add more meaning, objectives, and impactful participation to faction warfare, moving away from a purely grind-based system.
• EVE Vanguard Development: EVE Vanguard is progressing towards an alpha version, with a Steam playtest planned for Summer 2026. Development is informed by extensive pre-alpha testing and feedback, with a focus on core gameplay and the connection to EVE Online.
• Carrier and Battleship/Dreadnought Balance: The developers are iteratively refining ship balance, starting with battleships and dreadnoughts, and now focusing on carriers, with further upgrades and balancing planned.
• Expanded Lore and Storytelling: Future content will delve deeper into the empires' stories and conflicts, offering more narrative-driven experiences and opportunities for player impact.

FanFest is mentioned multiple times in the transcript:

• "we've talked about this at FanFest a few years ago": This refers to a past discussion about EVE's development direction.
• "We have the confidence because of the state of the game to think longer and and further into the future because we the the house was a bit on fire and now we put out the fire and and now we we can just we can start picking out curtains and and actually having fun and and like building the the game that we want want it to be. So that's also just a huge relief is to not have like anxiety um at every expansion of like okay like I I knew this would happen because of this thing and this thing something lurking in the shadows. So um I've the the confidence to plan three expansions has it it's it's been a very long time since that happened um if if ever if I'm I'm honest. And there are so many things we're not telling you right now and it's so exciting and I'm so pumped for FanFest and we're going to go into like incredible detail there.": This highlights anticipation for upcoming announcements and detailed information to be shared at FanFest regarding future expansions and game development.
• "I can't wait to hear more about that Vanguard Eve connection then.": This indicates that more information about the connection between EVE Vanguard and EVE Online will be revealed at FanFest.
• "We will be announcing a date at FanFest, but we're aiming for summer this year. We'll be running a Steam play test, which will be the first play test of Vanguard as an alpha.": This specifies that FanFest will be the venue for announcing the date for the Vanguard alpha playtest.
• "We'll get back to the other directors for the rest of the sort of EVA flavored directors chat, but it's been great to catch up with you and hear about what's happening with Vanguard. Um, so I'll hand it back over to CCP Swift and those other guys, and you'll be hearing more from this guy at FanFest in a couple of months.": This confirms that more details about Vanguard will be shared at FanFest.
• "One event that like was aside from the like the the really cool events like Drifter Crisis and all that um and the the latest events u we're actually we just reviewed the road map for events um which was um we've been using events to to be very experimentational also like to bring in brand new content um or because it's we take it offline we can we can afford to make mistakes in in events and like maybe like balance them a bit wrong or something, but it's a really good grounds for experiment experimentation.": While not directly mentioning FanFest, this section discusses events as a platform for experimentation, which often ties into content revealed or discussed at events like FanFest.
• "So, let's let's hear from them. Hi everyone. I hope you've been enjoying the director's chat so far. But a rare alignment happened this week, which is the week before the the stream you're watching right now, where we saw someone haunting the aisles at uh CCP Rake, and that person would be CCP Collins, the game director for E Vanguard. and uh you've been able the people have been able to watch the interview so far with CCP Akami, CCP Burger, and CCP Atarati. But we thought since we had you, let's snatch you and bring you into the studio.": This contextualizes the Vanguard interview within the broader "director's chat," implying it's part of a series that might be leading up to or connected with FanFest announcements.