Eve Online is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in a science fiction space setting. Since its release on May 6, 2003, the developer CCP Games has added a total of twenty-one expansions to the game. CCP provides expansions free of charge to its subscribers. This article highlights the expansions and changes introduced to the game.
Major expansions Expansion Release date Castor December 18, 2003 Exodus November 17, 2004 Exodus: Cold War June 29, 2005 Red Moon Rising December 16, 2005 Revelations I November 29, 2006 Revelations II June 19, 2007 Trinity December 5, 2007 Empyrean Age June 10, 2008 Quantum Rise November 11, 2008 Apocrypha March 10, 2009 Dominion December 1, 2009 Tyrannis May 26, 2010 Incursion November 30, 2010 Incarna June 21, 2011 Crucible November 29, 2011 Inferno May 22, 2012 Retribution December 4, 2012 Odyssey June 4, 2013 Rubicon November 19, 2013 Kronos June 3, 2014 Crius July 22, 2014 Hyperion August 26, 2014 Oceanus September 30, 2014 Dominion November 4, 2014 Phoebe November 4, 2014 Rhea December 9, 2014 Proteus January 13, 2015 Tiamat February 17, 2015 Scylla March 24, 2015 Mosaic April 28, 2015 Carnyx June 2, 2015 Aegis July 7, 2015 Galatea August 25, 2015 Vanguard September 29, 2015 Parallax November 3, 2015 Citadel April 27, 2016 Ascension November 15, 2016 Lifeblood October 24, 2017 Into The Abyss May 29, 2018 Onslaught November 13, 2018 Invasion May 28, 2019 Invasion Chapter 2 November 26, 2019 Fight or Flight January 16, 2020 Invasion Chapter 3 May 26, 2020 Depths of the Abyss September 29, 2020 Uprising August 11, 2022 Viridian June 13, 2023 Havoc November 14, 2023 Equinox June 11, 2024 Revenant November 12, 2024 Legion May 27, 2025CatalystNovember 18, 2025 Cradle of war June 6, 2026
Second Genesis Release date: May, 2003
Castor Release date: December 18, 2003, Castor was the first named content release, with one of the key features being the addition of the first special Tech 2 components and ships through research agents, and improvements and tweaks to the mission system launched in earlier patches. During the pre- and post- Castor patch cycle Eve players saw the introduction of conquerable stations in 0.0 security (lawless space) systems, the introduction of the agent mission running system, and the introduction of various NPC agents to help players gain in-game currency and faction standing through missions, the EVE equivalent of quests in other MMO's.
Exodus Release date: November 17, 2004
Main features of Exodus were the introduction of alliances between corporations and the ability for said alliances to claim ownership of a lawless (0.0) solar systems via "player owned starbases.", which were also a major new feature in the patch. Deadspace complexes - areas in space guarded by hostile NPC's, with a chance of getting special loot - were also introduced in Exodus.
Exodus: Cold War Release date: June 29, 2005
Cold War Edition contained an extensive new tutorial sequence and a storyline background introduction. Introduced in Cold War were "COSMOS" constellations where in-space agents began giving out story-driven missions and unique rewards. The freighter and dreadnought capital ships, full-fledged player-owned "outposts," and improved NPC pirate factions improved alliance-based gameplay. This expansion also added Unicode chat support, allowing communication in Asian, Cyrillic, and Greek languages.
Red Moon Rising Release date: December 16, 2005
Red Moon Rising was split off from the Revelations -expansions to maintain a more regular expansion schedule. In addition to various performance optimizations and tweaks, key features associated with the RMR expansion were the introduction of 39 new ships - most notably the introduction of the carrier, mothership, and Titans-class capital ships, the expansion of the COSMOS feature from the Cold War, and the addition of four new Asian-inspired bloodlines for players to choose from: The Achura for the Caldari State, Jin-Mei for the Gallente Federation, Khanid for the Amarr Empire and the Vherokior for the Minmatar Republic.
Revelations I Release date: November 29, 2006
Revelations was scheduled to be released in three parts under the codename "Kali". Major features of this expansion included an exploration system for scanning down various sites - combat, mining areas normally not visible, a proper contract system for trading or auctioning items, the replacement of the previous "Tech 2 research lottery" with the invention mechanic, ship customization with rigs, temporary combat boosters, and eight new regions of space to conquer.
Eve Voice was integrated as part of Revelations content patch 1.4, initially planned for release with Revelations II. Eve Voice is a voice over IP tool integrated into the Eve Online client, with software licensed by CCP from Vivox.
Revelations II Release date: June 19, 2007
Revelations II was the second of three expansions, designed to show the increased tensions between the empires within the game universe. Several new features were introduced; including a mechanism for overloading modules and area of effect bombs. several existing features have been extended including Level 5 agents, changes to sovereignty, starbases, outposts, and balancing changes to the Amarr race. Revelations II also changed the way new players start the game, in addition to new optional tutorials the existing tutorial has been shortened and refined, and players now start in a private dungeon to allow new players to get used to the controls in a protective environment.
Trinity Release date: December 5, 2007
Trinity was the third of the "Kali" expansions. Its biggest changes were the update of the game's graphics engine and the addition of 5 new ship classes: Heavy Interdictors, Electronic Attack Ships, Black Ops, Marauders and Jump Freighters, capable of using the jump drive to travel through low security space without using stargates. "Factional Warfare," a major addition to game mechanics, had been planned for this patch but was later announced that it would be included in a future patch, along with Ambulation (walking in stations and Full Human Representation, announced on the Eve Online Fanfest 2007). From the release of Trinity until the Apocrypha expansion CCP offered two editions of the game client; Classic for users who could not run the new graphics content on their computer, and Premium for those with a Shader Model 3-capable graphics card.
The initial launch version of the Trinity patch would under certain circumstances delete Windows XP's boot.ini file, thus rendering the operating system unbootable. Six hours after the release of this faulty patch CCP fixed the issue. While the number of affected players is unknown, 215 had specifically asked CCP for assistance.
Empyrean Age Release date: June 10, 2008
Empyrean Age, previously named Kali 4, was the ninth expansion of Eve Online and the last one in the Kali tetralogy. CCP included the Factional Warfare in this release. In this expansion, the in-game story played a key role and the situation in the game reflects events depicted in the novel of the same title by Tony Gonzales. The expansion allowed both individual players and whole corporations to fight for the four major NPC Empires of New Eden and battle for control of regions of space.
Quantum Rise Release date: November 11, 2008
The Quantum Rise expansion included features such as a new certificate system that allows verification of a player's proficiency in certain defined groups of skills by other players and a medal system for awards by corporations. Industrial ships were rebalanced and optimized, with addition of the Orca-class ship, "a sub-capital logistical ship with a mining command focus." The staged delivery of the expansion began with the recent implementation of new technology such as StacklessIO and EVE64 which upgraded the server hardware and streamlined communication between server and client to reduce lag. These improvements provide performance allowing for player vs. player battles with thousands of participants. Further hardware and software improvements are planned. Other features of the expansion include further graphics updates as started in the Trinity expansion; the ability for players to group their vessels' weapons for easier interaction; changes to autopilot routes and avoidance of player-defined solar systems. This patch also brought a controversial overhaul of the speed system.
Apocrypha Release date: March 10, 2009
At Fanfest 2008 it was announced that instead of a six-month gap between expansions the subsequent expansion to Quantum Rise, Apocrypha, would be released on March 10, 2009. This expansion included a training queue, Tech 3 vessels, and exploration of uncharted space through unstable wormholes. Apocrypha has improved NPCs' artificial intelligence and has added a new NPC faction to the game, the Sleepers.
Apocrypha 1.5 was released on August 20, 2009, and considered by CCP to be a mini-expansion. CCP felt that Apocrypha was released very early for a Summer expansion, and that they had enough content ready to go for it to be classified as more than a patch. The new mini-expansion brought to EVE four more epic mission arcs, new rig sizes, specialized cargo bays for specific ships, and performance enhancements for their Factional Warfare.
Apocrypha ended official support for Linux operating systems.
Dominion Release date: December 1, 2009
The focus of Dominion, the 12th expansion, is an overhaul in the alliance warfare sovereignty mechanics. It also includes the introduction of pirate epic arcs, an artistic redesign of planets, and a social networking platform called COSMOS (previously called New Eden). Dominion updates the In Game Browser (IGB) with Awesomium (a browser toolkit based on Chromium), allowing the IGB to behave more like a true browser and properly render HTML, javascript, and stylesheets.
Tyrannis Release date: May 26, 2010
Tyrannis is the 13th expansion to EVE Online, and focuses heavily on planetary interaction. Players can take advantage of deposits of minerals and other raw materials found on the planets of EVE. To that end, they are given the ability to build infrastructure for harvesting, storage and processing of these materials.
The previously revealed out of game community site allowing players to interact, organize and communicate with each other through a regular web browser has been renamed EVE Gate. EVE Gate features EVE Mail, in and out of game calendars and contacts and updates for players, corporations and alliances.
CCP added hundreds of new landmarks throughout New Eden. These are points in space connected to past storyline or player events. The landmarks show up in the overview, making them more apparent and accessible than before.
The Scorpion-class battleships received a graphical overhaul featuring improved quality textures, unique detailing for each model setting them apart from the other variations. The expansion also focuses on other optimizations and improvements throughout the game, such as reducing fleet lag and load handling.
Incursion Release Date: November 30, 2010
Incursion was announced on September 21, 2010. The expansion featured the "escalating attacks of the deadly Sansha's Nation". Players can join public fleets and co-operate to repel the Sansha incursions, receiving bounties and earning loyalty rewards. Incursion also includes many improvements as suggested by the CSM, as well as hardware upgrades, software improvements, and new cluster components aimed at increasing game performance.