[18] The project shows similarities to the British Global Combat Ship (also formerly named FSC program) but development is fully separate.

The current M-frigates, originally all built in the Netherlands but apart from two units sold to Belgium, Portugal, and Chile are reaching their planned retirement age around 2020.

However, due to extensive budget cuts over the past decades and other large materiel programs such as the acquisition of the F-35 for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the Dutch Ministry of Defense currently does not have enough funds available to start building the ships.

Onboard modern ships the Evolved Sea Sparrow (Block 2 in development) does the job, but those do not fit in the also outdated Mk48 VLS cells on board the M-frigates.

[25] A final agreement for the four ships was signed on 22 June 2023 by Dutch Minister of Defence Kajsa Ollongren and her Belgian counterpart Ludivine Dedonder.

[26] On 5 September 2024, the Dutch Ministry of Defense released the 2024 Defense Memorandum which sees the Royal Netherlands Navy receiving 2 additional frigates, bringing the total order to 4 frigates for the Dutch navy and 6 in total.

[35] Furthermore, the ships will be equipped with two 4 canister NSM launchers and two 8-cell Mk 41 strike-length VLS that are capable of launching a total of 64 ESSM Block 2 missiles in a quad-pack configuration.

[37][38] There is also room for future growth, such as potentially arming the frigates with anti-torpedo torpedoes and laser weapons.