Sulphur Basin was the greybox battlefield EVE Vanguard ran during Operation Nemesis in September 2025. It hosted a 9v9 insurgency mode: two teams of nine fought across the same planet surface to seize control of Upwell cannons and break the fleet holding orbit above them.
Because it shipped as an untextured greybox, Sulphur Basin was built to test the insurgency loop rather than to show off finished art. Whether it carries into the current Operation Avalon build is not yet detailed, so treat it as a snapshot of how team-versus-team combat looked during Nemesis.
What Sulphur Basin was
Sulphur Basin appeared in Operation Nemesis, the free open event that ran from 16 September to 2 October 2025 and marked EVE Vanguard's first crossover with EVE Online. The map dropped eighteen players onto a single hostile surface and split them nine against nine, a much larger head-to-head footprint than the up-to-three squad format that defines the extraction loop elsewhere in the game.
The greybox presentation meant flat, untextured geometry stood in for the eventual environment. That kept the focus on positioning, sightlines, and how the two teams contested the same objectives rather than on visual polish.
The insurgency objective
Both teams of nine fought to seize control of the Upwell cannons scattered across the basin. Those cannons were the battlefield's decisive points: holding them was how a side pushed the insurgency in its favor and worked toward breaking the fleet stationed in orbit above.
This turned Sulphur Basin into a control fight instead of an extraction run. Rather than racing a Harmonic Bridge before threats overwhelmed you, you were pushing and defending fixed positions against nine opposing players, with map control deciding the outcome.
Sulphur Basin and Operation Avalon
Operation Avalon, the alpha playtest running 7 to 20 July 2026, leads with the new Lost Convoy map and a rebuilt combat system. Sulphur Basin's place in that build has not been spelled out, so anything you remember from the Nemesis event may or may not return in the same form.
If you played the 9v9 mode during Nemesis, Sulphur Basin is a useful reference point for how EVE Vanguard has experimented with larger team-versus-team fights alongside its core three-player extraction runs.
Points of interest
| Location | What's there |
|---|---|
| Upwell cannons | Control points that decide the insurgency. |
Frequently asked questions
What game mode did Sulphur Basin use?
It ran a 9v9 insurgency mode. Two teams of nine players fought across the same battlefield to seize control of Upwell cannons and break the fleet holding orbit above the map.
Is Sulphur Basin in Operation Avalon?
Sulphur Basin was a greybox map from Operation Nemesis in September 2025. Whether it returns in the current Operation Avalon alpha has not yet been detailed, so its presence in that build is unclear.