EVE Frontier
CCP Games
Awake from stasis as the last relic of humanity where feral drones swarm the wasteland and other survivors fight to gain control over the dwindling resources. Take part in an upcoming, 3rd-person, hardcore space survival sandbox MMO set in a dangerous player-driven universe focusing on scavenging, crafting, and constructing infrastructure in a lawless, persistent, and uncharted galaxy.
EVE Frontier is the MMO survival game set in a sandbox universe that’s shaped by player-driven activity. EVE Frontier is a standalone survival space simulation game created by CCP Games and built on blockchain technology meaning the ownership of ships and factories are completely linked to the owner. We didn’t have much experience with this side of EVE Frontier so we’ll see how CCP Games handles this in future developments but right now EVE Frontier is still in early access and the player-driven side of governing economies isn’t fully implemented.
Right now purchasing Founder Access is the only way to play the current pre-launch version of the game. Its receiving regular updates with new content, such as the recently released Cycle 5: Shroud of Fear update.
EVE Frontier takes place in a region warped by massive black holes and littered with the ruins of a collapsed civilisation. Players are known awoken from status as “riders” who must explore what’s left of the destroyed universe to survive. You’ll manufacturer clones to scavenge resources, build and upgrade your base to create a new civilisation from the ashes of the one that was lost. The core gameplay loop is classic MMO survival and works well for EVE Frontier, a game that places emphasis on freedom and player-driven content. More story will be added as development continues, but for now, there’s not much to learn about the extinct civilisations. CCP Games has confirmed that Frontier is set in the same universe as Eve Online.
As expected, exploration, collecting resources, crafting and building are the core gameplay loop, and it does feel very classic survival MMO game. Players start in a dark corner of the galaxy with a single ship and a home base to build from. Each new Cycle that’s released wipes all player-built content because the game is in early access. Unfortunate, but it does make it very easy to start playing the game. Not everything is lost in the wipe. At the end of each cycle, players keep their EVE Points, and bonuses are given for consistency and collective progress.
Pros
Active development
Unique hardcore space survival
Awesome dark sci-fi graphics
Great gameplay mechanics
Super detailed lore
Cons
Integrated cryptocurrency
Early access
Player-driven content not there yet
Rewards feel slow
Poor tutorial
The biggest unique aspect of EVE Frontier is the inclusion of blockchain. Not only is there a cryptocurrency token that can be purchased with real money and spent on in-game purchases, but it’s also utilised within the world itself. If you’ve played EVE Online you’ll understand why actually this works well in the EVE universe franchise. Ownership of ships and factories is linked to the blockchain, and the dark sci-fi setting allows players to build, trade and govern their own economies. The goal seems to be to allow Frontier to become a community-run game so that CCP Games doesn’t need to be an active administrator and so that even if CCP ceased to exist, Frontier would continue to run without issues. Its a very interesting take but honestly I don’t know much about blockchaining so please do your own research before making judgements.
Combat is still larger part of the core gameplay loop with different NPC enemies to deal with and other players who might not be so friendly. Cycle 5 rebalances combat to clearly distinguish light and heavy ships, which is great news for realism and faction warfare. It also replaces dungeons with New Orbital Zones with cleaner environments and resource patterns across systems. Players can steal resources from others, which means players need to be combat-ready for PvP even if they prefer to focus on PvE gameplay elements.
EVE Frontier is also a very unique MMO game because it’s allow player mods. Smart Assemblies is the server-side modding platform that grants players unprecedented creative freedom to build custom structures, tools and whatever else they wish. Players are even building entire games within the MMO with one player recreating Doom.
There is a lot to explore and do in Frontier already. This is still an early access game, and it does need to be reiterated that more content is coming in the future, and this is clearly a boundary-pushing MMO with almost a Codex of information on their YouTube channel. CCP Games is working to create a game that wouldn’t sound out of place in a futuristic sci-fi movie, and so far, Eve Frontier is fun. It’s a very experimental game at times, and it will be a long time before we see the full release version.
For now, in my experience EVE Frontier is a very enjoyable and a very unique game but does need an improved tutorial system. I think CCP Games is having a hard time with the learning curve for new players, to drip feed the information against throwing the Codex of lore at your face. Either way its got me intrigued and I can’t wait to see more!
Overall Rating
