A new objective-based game mode was today announced for EVE: Valkyrie at Fanfest 2016, CCP’s annual gathering in Reykjavik, Iceland. Called ‘Carrier Assault’, it promises to offers what lead designer Andrew Willans calls an “influence from a certain ’70s sci-fi classic moment.” That’s Star Wars (1977). We’re allowed to say it.
In the new game mode you and your team assault a large capital ship battle carrier protected by the enemy. Attacking the opponent’s carrier is no easy feat though, as it’s covered in ‘cooling nodes’ and a number of defense systems like mounted turrets. The shields only come down if you knock out all the nodes, allowing you a window of opportunity to get as many objectives as possible, and fight off players and carrier defenses.
The mission: to get to the core and explode the enemy carrier from within. Lead designer Andrew Willians took the crowd through some of the intricacies of attacking in ‘Carrier Assault’.
“If you approach from the front, you’ll find the heaviest layer of defenses—so lots and lots of machine gun turrets,” Willians explained. “So you’re a mad man if you go in through that entrance […] You can try over ‘the trench’, again there will be heavy defenses: machine guns, automated turrets, and also the opponent team are in full-on defense mode […] But there’s a pretty cool access tunnel in the back of the ship that leads straight to the core. Now the difference: there are less turrets to avoid, but it’s quite a tight kind of navigation to get through ‘the trench’. Once you get in there, and you get the cooling nodes destroyed, and you get the ability to get into the trench, it makes for a pretty exciting finale of the mission. It’s basically a tight, fast burn to the core of the ship.”
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Willans then admitted to the crowd that there were a few obvious cinematic similarities to be made from the new game mode:
“There are some influences here. You might be able to spot a slight influence from a certain 70s sci-fi classic moment,” he said jokingly. “I wouldn’t want to name them, but ya know. We want some of that.”
The new Carrier Assault game mode comes as a number of post-launch goals to Valkyrie, which launched late last month with the first wave of Oculus Rifts. Among the new objective-based team mode comes new ship classes, new ships, and community-driven content.
We have feet on the ground at Fanfest 2016, so we’ll be bringing you more news, previews and our impressions of Carrier Assault soon. The arrival date of ‘Carrier Assault’ has yet to be released.
Disclosure: CCP Games provided airfare and lodging for Road to VR to attend Fanfest 2016
