EVE Anywhere is taking space spreadsheet gaming to the cloud

CCP Games has launched a cloud-based browser client for EVE Online called EVE Anywhere, which allows players to commit their sci-fi white collar crimes through Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.

The client entered an 11,000-user beta in August of 2021, and CCP claims it was well-received by its testers. The live version is available at no extra cost to EVE subscribers, can be accessed by logging in to a paying account through the game's official website, and requires a surprisingly lenient 25 Mbps minimum bandwidth to run.

The latest generations of hardware and cloud technology have offered competing visions for the dream of seamlessly taking an at-home gaming experience on the go and back with as little compromise as possible, with the Switch and Steam Deck accomplishing this through hardware, and Google Stadia and others falling short of offering a cloud streaming experience we recommend right now.

Positioning EVE Anywhere as a supplement to the game's full local client rather than a replacement makes it a much less radical proposition than selling cloud-only games like Google is doing. It also helps that CCP only has to get it working with a single game rather than a whole catalogue, at least for the time being.

I've seen some users discuss running EVE Anywhere on tablet browsers or even a Tesla's dashboard screen (please do not do this), but CCP's official press release specifies laptop and desktop browsers as the preferred platforms for the service. Still, being able to run a favorite game on a thin and light laptop without absolutely melting the thing is impressive enough. I'll be curious to see how CCP brings this technology to bear with any future projects, particularly its long-embattled FPS concept.