Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' free-to-play rebirth launches this year

Sony's announced that it'll be renewing its support for cult MMO Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The company has given the dormant title a shot in the arm with a new development team and a new title update (the first in three months). Sony's also explained that it'll be boosting the populace of Vanguard's game-world, Telon, by transferring Vanguard to a free-to-play model.

Vanguard, the followup title by a team of EverQuest devs led by EQ key designer Brad McQuaid, managed to make a decent impact on its release in 2007, scoring a worthy 8/10 in our Vanguard: Saga of Heroes review. Since then, however, the game's development has been increasingly quiet. “I realize I'm stating the obvious,” says newly appointed director of development Andy Sites: “We've had a dry spell of game updates over the past few months. That said, I'm happy to announce the drought will be coming to an end.”

Sites promises the new team, made up of veterans from Vanguard and both EverQuest titles, will be updating the game “MUCH more frequently” from now on. While the process of bringing an F2P structure to Vanguard is in its early stages, Sites promises an experience not too dissimilar to those of other SOE free-play titles such as DC Universe Online and, of course, EverQuest itself. While the actual transition to free-play isn't scheduled until this summer, Sites promises to keep fans updated at the Vanguard site with developer bios, game updates and more information soon.