EVE Online has no shortage of dangers and mysteries, but its new expansion will be adding more of both in the form of a deadly new human race, the Triglavians. Announced at Fanfest 2018, CCP Games' annual fan-convention that is actually just an excuse to drink very expensive Icelandic beer, Into the Abyss is a free expansion coming in May 29.
When it releases, players will be able to venture into Abyssal Deadspace, pockets of hostile space that focus on survival, exploration, and combat against the deadly Triglavian Collective. For several weeks now, players have been unraveling the mystery of this new hostile human race that has EVE's other big-bads, the Drifters, running for their lives. As Fanfest continues we'll have more information on who (or what) they are and why they might represent a major new threat to New Eden. What's cool about Abyssal Deadspace is that it's accessible to all players new and old, but its difficulty, along with the rewards, scales the deeper you travel into it.
What's even cooler, is that you enter Abyssal Deadspace using a special item called an Abyssal Filament that leaves a physical beacon behind that you'll return to when you leave the Deadspace pocket. That means that it's quite possible enemy players can find your beacon, camp it, and blow you up and take your amazing loot.
There's good reason to risk your neck inside of one, though. Not only will you find the skills and parts to craft your own Triglavian ships to fly, a new item type—'mutaplasmids'—is looted inside of Abyssal Deadspace. When combined with modules (the equipment your ship uses like guns), mutaplasmids have a chance to transform them into powerful Abyssal modules with vastly increased power—or ruin them. In a demonstration, a CCP developer combined a mutaplasmid with a microwarp drive and made a module more powerful than anything available in EVE today. There's a good chance these modules will revolutionize how pilots fit their ships.
Into the Abyss adds a Character Progression tracker that will help players better plan their growth as they train new skills. Multiple paths will help direct new players into defined careers, with milestones to work towards as they decide how to invest their time in New Eden. This will be a great way of helping newer players know exactly how to become a miner, combat pilot, and a whole lot more.
Other features include a quality-of-life pass on Planetary Interaction, which will have over 20 tweaks and fixes to the user interface—a rework players have been asking for.
Into the Abyss is coming on May 29, but this is just the first bit of our Fanfest coverage. Both Pip and I have our boots on the very wet Icelandic ground, and we have a whole week of interviews with CCP Games developers and EVE players to look forward to. Also there's an EVE-themed wedding tomorrow that's officiated by EVE's very own Space Pope, so, uh, that's a thing.
