Eve Online gets new structures in space and as an offshoot a PC shooter: Golem.de has tried the promising action game at an event and spoke with CCP studio director Hilmar Pétursson on the future of the futuristic universe.
The creators of Eve Online know how to party. It became particularly clear in mid-October 2018 on a Saturday in Drai’s, a noble club in Las Vegas: There, three members of the band of the developer studio CCP Games hopped in golden glitter clothes across the stage, sang classics like killing is just a means or Wrecking Machine – and were cheered for it by the Eve fans frenetically.
The party over the rooftops of Glitzerstadt was the highlight of Eve Vegas: an annual fan convention where Eve players from the US and other parts of the world meet. Around a thousand fans came to Las Vegas last week to celebrate the community, talk to the developers, and learn about how Eve will continue in the near future.
Exactly there were quite a few question marks. In 2017, CCP dismissed around 100 employees, closed studios and left VR. The austerity measures were taken by many fans with suspicion – obviously the company had come under increasing pressure from its investors. On September 6, 2018, South Korean publisher Pearl Abyss surprisingly announced it would acquire CCP for over $ 400 million . The end of the independence of Eve?
At Eve Vegas, of course, the takeover was one of the main topics: in the conversations and roundtables of the convention it came up again and again to the language. Not a few fans fear that Pearl Abyss could bring microtransactions into the Eve universe – after all, the publisher (Black Desert Online) is known for its aggressive monetization strategies.
On the verge of Eve Vegas Golem.de could talk about it with CCP boss Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. “Pearl Abyss will have no influence on the design of Eve Online,” says the Icelander, who has guided the fortunes of CCP since the beginning. Pétursson sees the acquisition as very positive: “Our company was previously owned by investors – and now an MMO developer – which opens up new opportunities for longer-term investment in Eve.” Companies can also learn a lot from each other, says Pétursson, also known as CCP Hellmar. “The corporate philosophy of Pear Abyss is very similar to that of CCP.” Whether the merger actually brings the desired synergy effects remains to be seen.
Another big Eve Vegas theme – and not without controversy – was Project Nova. The PC Shooter is located in the universe of Eve Online and is developed by CCP in cooperation with the British studio Sumo Digital (Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Crackdown 3). At the festival, CCP announced that Project Nova’s alpha access – by the way, only a working title – will begin in November 2018 by invitation. Visitors to Eve Vegas could even try the shooter. CCP had set up several attack stations in one of the conference rooms – the fans made use of the offer as well.
Also Golem.de could allude to Project Nova. In the game, we assume the role of an elite clone soldier fighting against Sansha’s Nation, an illegal, totalitarian state. Sansha’s Nation has brainwashed pliant combat slaves under the surveillance of the True Guardians, a cybernetic elite. The first Player vs. Environment (PvE) battles we were allowed to attend took place on the Minmatar Battleship Maelstrom. In onslaught mode, four players try to re-create the spaceship’s energy, confronted with ever-new waves of enemies.