Since 2003, CCP Games’ sci-fi online game EVE Online has remained an active if not sometimes under-the-radar sci-fi online game. It continues to draw in players almost two decades later for its combination of having an expansive universe, challenge concerning both combat and money-making, and focus on player interaction within its single non-instanced server. Expanding the game’s reach to an audience not always tapped by online game publishers, CCP Games partnered with NetEase Games and has been authorised to operation in the People’s Republic of China.
This is not the first time EVE Online has been made available in China. It was first launched in 2006, however their partnership with Tiancity to run the China-exclusive servers was terminated in mid-2018. Returning and new capsulers will be able to return to New Eden very soon, with an Open Beta planned once “final adjustments and optimisations” are made to EVE Online by both companies.
We are very happy to start the next chapter of our journey with EVE Online in China. It started when we visited ChinaJoy in 2005, showing our game to Chinese gamers for the first time. Since the initial release of EVE Online in China in May 2006 we have been energized by the passion and dedication that Chinese players have shown, inspiring us to embrace all the great developments we have seen both in Chinese science-fiction and Chinese science reality.
While China is the biggest nation in the world and Iceland is one of the smallest nations in the world, we have met kindreds spirits and made friends throughout our decades together. It’s with great pride and honor that, together with our friends at NetEase, we bring our spaceship adventure game to the biggest gaming market in the world – the best version of EVE Online we have ever delivered!
Hilmar V. Pétursson – CEO of CCP Games
All of us in Iceland have been following the journey of CCP Games and EVE Online since CCP Games’ foundation here in Reykjavík in 1997. We are excited to follow this next chapter in EVE’s long history and I want to congratulate CCP Games and NetEase. Partnerships like this one are very important in fostering innovation and sustainable economic growth.
Þórdís Kolbrún R. Gylfadóttir – Iceland’s Minister of Industry and Innovation
EVE Online takes place 20,000 years in the future. Humans have constructed a jumpgate in a wormhole named EVE. After many humans colonize the dimension on other side of the wormhole, the gate explodes, denying the humans contact with Earth. In the panic that ensues, many of the new colonies are destroyed, technology and knowledge lost. For thousands of years the colonies struggle and finally they regain all that they had lost. The only problem is that each of the colonies has formed different factions and races.
