First up is the cinematic trailer for the new expansion coming to EVE Online. This patch focuses on unfolding the next stage of the Triglavian storyline that’s been working itself out over the last few months. The Triglavian Collective burst onto the scene of New Eden months ago when mysterious forces began decimating the Drfiters.
Conflict has been brewing and often boiling over between these two factions for some time now, and now we’re seeing the next step in their war. And this backdrop is being used to introduce the Triglavian ships to main game, as a basis for them venturing out of Abyssal space for the first time. There are three new ships set to be introduced in the patch.
The Invasion expansion also brings in a bunch of user experience adjustments to the game. For one thing, there’s the new Pointer Tool designed to help out new players. CCP is also putting in some much-needed adjustments to war declaration mechanics, as well as added content and user experience improvements to The Agency system.
Then there’s the Chinese mobile game based on the EVE property that NetEase is working with CCP Games to develop. The mobile app takes the core gameplay of EVE Online and shrinks the experience down. The app is still pretty vague, but CCP and NetEase pledge to blend “resource gathering, production, trading, equipment” alongside combat to create a new experience for the franchise.
The teams working on Infinite Galaxy are currently working on polishing the experience by balancing ships and other items, as well as tweaking the in-game economy. No firm details or gameplay beyond the teaser to show yet.
Although it’s kind of hard to imagine this seeing huge success among the core Chinese player base for EVE. That’s because the player numbers on the Serenity server have been steadily shrinking for months as those players migrate to the main server in Singularity.