Everquest Next Landmark Becomes Just Landmark, Enters Closed Beta

In a producer’s letter over the official Sony Online Entertainment boards, senior producer Terry “Fairan” Michaels explains that Everquest Next Landmark is going to become just “Landmark”, to more clearly note its freeform non-fantasy-based nature and separate it from Everquest Next (the actual fantasy MMO). He also stresses this won’t actually impact Landmark or Everquest Next:

We are changing the name of the game. literally. The game is no longer called EverQuest Next Landmark. We are now just Landmark. You may be asking, (Why the change?) Answer: To a lot of people, having EverQuest in the name immediately implies a fantasy game. Landmark is anything you can imagine. Removing EverQuest Next seemed the best. This doesn’t change anything we’ve said about Landmark or EverQuest Next. All the details of the games are still the same. We’re still using Landmark to build EverQuest Next and we’ll still have areas dedicated to EQN. We’re just simplifying the name and making it easier to understand that the games are different from one another.

Oh yeah, and to go along with the name change, we’ll be changing over all of social media handles for the game to match the new name over the next couple of weeks. We’ll make sure to let everyone know when that happens and what the new tags are! Two that you may have already noticed are Twitter (@LandmarkGame) and Twitch (www.twitch.tv/landmarkgame).

And given the game has also entered closed beta, here’s a bit on what players can expect:

Okay, so let’s talk about Closed Beta and what you can expect. Closed Beta is going to be similar in nature to Alpha, but it will be a longer phase with some of the major features being introduced in to the game. We’ll be adding Combat (which includes damage, death, and risk), the crafting overhaul we’ve talked about on the forums, Player Studio, caves, water (both static and dynamic), loot (heck yeah!), SOEMote, a journal to track your progression, achievements, collections, an improved map, salvaging, guilds, ley lines, pvp, and more! We’ll be updating The Blueprint (formerly the roadmap) regularly so that everyone knows our plans and priorities!

Thanks, PC Gamer.