EverQuest Next Landmark enters Closed Beta; gets a name change

EverQuest Next Landmark has officially entered Closed Beta, SOE announced. It will be similar "in nature" to Alpha, but it will be a longer phase with some of the "major" features being introduced into the game.

These features include Combat (which includes damage, death, and risk), the crafting overhaul, Player Studio, caves, water (both static and dynamic), loot, SOEMote, a journal to track your progress, achievements, collections, and improved map, guilds, salvaging, ley lines, PvP, and more.

Alongside the transition to Closed Beta, SOE has also announced a name change for the game. Henceforth, EverQuest Next Landmark will now be known simply as Landmark.

"To a lot of people, having EverQuest in the name immediately implies a fantasy game," explained senior producer Terry 'Fairan' Michaels. "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."

SOE won't announce a date for Open Beta until "we have everything in the game that we want and we're sure we're ready for it."

EverQuest Next Landmark was announced in early August 2013 alongside EverQuest Next. The duo of games work in tandem as Landmark provides players with built-in modeling tools that allow the community's creations into the future world of EverQuest Next.

[SOE]