I'm a network engineer (CCNP) and I've spent the last few months going through the v2.0 exam topics line by line against v1.1. There's a lot of half-information floating around, so here's the whole picture in one place.

TL;DR: six domains become five, "describe and explain" turns into "troubleshoot and diagnose", AI gets its own domain, and a handful of classic topics are gone. Your CCNA is the same CCNA either way.

The domains

v1.1 (today)	Weight	v2.0 (from Feb 3, 2027)	Weight
Network Fundamentals	20%	Network Infrastructure & Connectivity	25%
Network Access	20%	Switching & Network Access	25%
IP Connectivity	25%	IP Routing	20%
IP Services	10%	Network Services & Security	20%
Security Fundamentals	15%	AI, Network Operations & Management	10%
Automation & Programmability	10%

What's new

• AI gets real: agentic AI in network operations, and choosing the right prompts for generative AI tools.
• OSPFv3 joins OSPFv2.
• VRRP is named alongside HSRP, and you read FHRP operational status instead of just describing it.
• DNS records: diagnose A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS and PTR problems.
• SFTP and SCP replace TFTP/FTP.
• Storm control and RA guard join DHCP snooping, DAI and port security.
• Evidence-based troubleshooting: show commands, logs, ping/traceroute and packet capture output.
• Ansible stays. Terraform is gone.

What's out

• Comparing TCP vs UDP
• Switching concepts (MAC learning and aging, frame flooding)
• The full IPv6 address-type zoo (unicast and EUI-64 stay)
• Wireless architectures, AP modes and WLC GUI config (wireless principles stay)
• NTP
• QoS per-hop behavior
• REST APIs and JSON
• Security program elements (awareness, training, physical access)

The real shift

The verbs. Across Domains 1 to 3, the topics now say troubleshoot and diagnose: interface and cable issues, IPv4/IPv6 addressing, client connectivity, DHCP, L2/L3 problems, static routes. Memorizing definitions gets you less. Reading output and finding the fault gets you more.

Test now or wait?

• The credential is identical. Pass v1.1 and it's the same CCNA, valid for three years.
• Ready by mid-January? Take v1.1. Every major course and practice bank targets it today.
• Just starting? Don't panic. Subnetting, VLANs, trunks, STP, OSPF, ACLs, NAT and IPv6 basics carry straight over. Study those now, decide your exam version around December, then add the v2.0-only topics if you're going that way.
• Cisco retires v1.1 when v2.0 goes live, so check the exact last test date on Cisco's exam page before you book.

The commands v2.0 expects you to live in

show ip interface brief · show interfaces (errors, duplex, speed) · show vlan brief · show interfaces trunk · show etherchannel summary · show spanning-tree · show cdp neighbors detail / show lldp neighbors · show ip route · show ip ospf neighbor · show standby brief / show vrrp brief · show ip nat translations · show access-lists · show ip dhcp snooping binding · show logging

If you can look at each of those and say what's wrong, you're in good shape for either version.

Which camp are you in: racing v1.1 before February, or waiting for v2.0?

Just uploaded a full endgame session — Level 40 Rogue, start to finish:

▸ Quest tasks in the provinces (yes, the new 100% technical briefings)

▸ Dungeon runs — every fight is still a real 200-301 question

▸ A ranked duel in the Collision Domain

▸ The Fifth Seal: Lord Downtime, fought at a live IOS console

If you've been wondering whether the Rogue is worth taking all the way up: the

short answer is the crit window. Rogues get a faster crit timer and your streak

decays one step on a miss instead of resetting — so at 40, confident answering

snowballs hard. You'll see a couple of CRIT chains in the video that just

wouldn't happen on my paladin.

Watch here: [YouTube link]

Two things I'd genuinely love from you after watching:

1. Which class should I take to 40 next — Paladin or Mage? Winner gets the

   next video.

2. If you're mid-grind: what level are you, and what's the wall right now?

   (The last time you all answered that, we rewrote every task briefing.)

— Jack

A study quality change went live today, and it came straight from your feedback.

For anyone new here: Packetfall is CCNA and Network+ prep built as a 3D RPG. As you explore, you meet task givers, the characters who introduce a concept and then quiz you on it. Each one shows three short lines of setup right before its question.

Those setup lines used to be pure fantasy. A cabling character named Maela would open like this:

Before

> "Hold there, traveler. I'm Maela, and I keep the Vale's lines true. Every link is a thread of copper or glass, and each carries only so far." > > Copper, the twisted pair we string between most halls, runs clean to about 100 metres. Past that, the signal frays. > > Glass, or fibre, carries light instead of current, and single mode glass reaches tens of kilometres.

It reads nicely. But a lot of you kept telling us the same thing: right before a question, the flavor got in the way. You'd be trying to lock in a fact and instead spend a beat translating "a thread of copper or glass" back into "Cat6 versus single mode fiber." That extra decoding is exactly the kind of cognitive load you don't want in the one moment you're trying to remember something.

So we made the call. Cut the lore out of every briefing and write it as clean, 100% technical study notes. Same concept, same three lines, all signal:

After

> Copper versus fiber comes down to distance. > > Twisted pair copper (Cat5e/Cat6) is reliable to about 100 meters. Beyond that, attenuation and crosstalk corrupt the signal. > > Single mode fiber carries light and reaches tens of kilometers, which makes it the choice for any long distance run.

The idea is simple: put as little as possible between you and the fact, so the moment before each question stays clean and the repetition actually sticks. It rolled out across the entire game, 81 CCNA stations spread over 27 task givers in all five provinces, plus 78 Network+ stations. It's live right now.

What did not change

The questions, the answer choices, the explanation on every option, and the reason you see when you miss were always written at exam quality, and they stay exactly as they were. The tested content never had lore in it. This was only ever about the intro.

And the world is still fully intact. Task givers keep their names, and the map, the setting, and the bosses are untouched. The fantasy still lives all around the studying, which is a big part of why you keep coming back. It just steps aside for the few seconds that matter most.

Thank you to everyone who raised this. Packetfall is a sharper study tool because you spoke up. Please keep it coming: if there's another place where the game gets between you and the material, that's exactly what we want to hear.

Cisco announced this back in May but I feel like it's flying under the radar for a lot of people still grinding. Figured I'd break it down for anyone who hasn't dug into the details yet.

The short version: CCNA v2.0 goes live February 3, 2027. The current v1.1 exam retires that day. It's the biggest update since 2020, and honestly a lot of the changes are for the better.

THE BIG SHIFTS

Troubleshooting is now around 28% of the exam. v1.1 barely tested this. This means more performance based labs and reading show command output to figure out what's broken. It's harder, but it's also the stuff you actually do on the job, so I'm kind of into it.

AI got folded into domain 5. Before you stress about it, it's conceptual only. Describe, explain, compare. You're learning what AI tools do in network operations, not building models or writing prompts. It's roughly 10% of the exam and there are no config labs for it.

Networking fundamentals and switching now make up about 50% of the exam. Cisco is doubling down on core skills, which I think is the right call.

WHAT GOT REMOVED

Good news for current students, a lot of theory got trimmed:

- Memorizing roles of specific device types
- Topology architecture comparisons (two-tier, three-tier, spine-leaf)
- Physical cable type comparisons
- QoS got mostly cut
- Some of the deeper IPv6 theory

Less pure memorization, more applied skills.

WHAT'S NEW OR EXPANDED

- PoE configuration is now actually tested, not just described
- DNS troubleshooting expanded (A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, PTR, NS records and diagnosing failures)
- DHCP server side config on Cisco IOS
- More hands-on treatment of wireless, virtualization, and containers

MY TAKE

If you're already deep into v1.1 prep, keep going and finish it. Your cert is good for three years after you pass, even if you take it on the last valid day, and every core skill carries straight over to v2.0. Don't throw away your momentum.

If you're just starting out now, it might actually be worth leaning toward v2.0 from day one. You get more runway, more lab time, and you're learning material that reflects what modern networking jobs actually look like. The extra troubleshooting focus means you walk away more job ready, not just certified.

Either way the fundamentals are the same, so nothing you study this summer is wasted.

I'm honestly pretty optimistic about this update. It feels more practical and more respectful of your time than the old blueprint. A CCNA should mean you can actually troubleshoot a network, and v2.0 leans into that.

What's everyone's plan? Finishing v1.1 or switching over to v2.0 material? Curious where people are landing on this.

MAJOR UPDATE — the wider realm just opened. Packetfall started as a CCNA game. As of now it's two.

The entire CompTIA Network+ (N10-009) track is live — a second realm your existing champion can walk straight into:

• hand-built dungeons, each with its own gate
• new Seal-boss CLI labs — the command-line troubleshooting fights, now for Network+

The screenshot is one of the new boss labs — Encapsulon, the Sevenfold Wyrm. Instead of more multiple choice, you drop into a live console and climb the OSI stack from Layer 1 up, one command at a time, until you find the broken coil. Real commands, real output, real methodology.

What it costs you: nothing to start. The first province of Network+ is free, same as the Vale: a full run of dungeons plus that first CLI boss lab, no card. And if you're already a Citizen, it's included — one pass now covers both certs. Nothing new to buy.

A few other things that landed alongside it: Lord Loopback now holds two campaign charges, so you can run CCNA and Network+ side by side, each with its own progress; new legendary gear, booklets, and music in every province; and the usual pile of fixes.
.

Go break a new Seal and if you hit a question you think is wrong or a lab that misbehaves, tell me here. It's still just me building this, and that feedback is what makes it better.

I work in networking (CCNP) and spend a lot of time around people prepping for the CCNA, so a few things that tend to save people time:

Learn subnetting until you can do it in your head, not on paper. The magic-number method (256 minus the mask octet) gets you the block size, and from there the network, broadcast, and host range fall out in a few seconds. On the clock, that speed is worth real points.

Don't just memorize, understand the why. A big chunk of the exam is symptom to cause, not recall. If you know what a feature actually does, you can reason out a troubleshooting question even when the wording is unfamiliar. Pure flashcard memorizers get wrecked by those.

Spend real time in a simulator. Packet Tracer is free. Actually configuring VLANs, a trunk, OSPF, and an ACL teaches you more than reading about them ever will, and the muscle memory shows up on config questions.

Space it out. Twenty focused minutes daily beats a five-hour weekend cram. The blueprint is wide, and spaced repetition is what makes it stick.

What tripped the rest of you up the most? Curious what people are stuck on right now.