Why ‘Eve Frontier’ Is Opening Up to Everyone With Free Trial Experience

Massively multiplayer online (MMO) Ethereum game Eve Frontier is hosting a new 10-day free trial, letting anyone explore its space survival frontier that “literally wants to kill you,” in the words of CCP Games founder and CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson.

The game will provide free access from June 27 to July 7, allowing users to harvest resources, build bases, and earn Grace, a type of in-game points that is converted to the permanent Eve Points that track a player’s legacy.

The trial launch comes after developer CCP Games kicked off “New Era” Founders Access earlier this month, in the process removing the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that previously kept players from sharing game details and early access impressions.

“We have been on the game development journey under NDA with the Founders Access community for some time now,” CCP Community Developer Ben Sisson told Decrypt. “As we move into the New Era and begin the cycles program, it is a perfect time to open the game so that more new players can experience life in the Frontier.”

Cycles are akin to in-game seasons, with short-term progress being wiped at the start of each new cycle—though according to the official website, “your impact endures as you build toward long-term rewards.” According to Sisson, CCP Games opted for a 10-day trial period because it can take a while for new players to “find their groove” in the game. 

CCP Games first opened closed alpha access to Eve Frontier in December, selling Founders Access passes at prices ranging from $30-90, with extra perks in the pricier packages. Since that time, CCP Games has been gathering feedback and working on Eve Frontier’s in-game economy, even hiring a former central bank economist to help develop the experience. 

“Like any game at such an early stage, we have already received some highly valuable feedback from our community,” said Sisson. 

“We experienced some challenges early on with the way the universe was distributing resources that required some updates on our end,” he added, “but despite this, our players were constantly finding new and creative ways to work around those issues and progress deeper into the universe than we were expecting, given the circumstances.”

Eve Frontier is a spinoff of Eve Online, a highly successful space-themed MMORPG released by CCP Games in 2003. The hardcore space game boasts an annual fan festival in Iceland and extensive community lore—though no crypto components.

Sisson said that CCP has seen interest from Eve Online players in exploring Eve Frontier.

“Eve Frontier targets a different player type from the die-hard Eve Online players. We have seen great interest from Eve Online players who have taken a break for one reason or another,” he said. “Some love the new gameplay, some have been genuinely interested in making the economy a bigger part of the game, and some wanted the chance for a fresh start.”

The game, which is being built on the Ethereum-based Redstone gaming network, will have at least two currencies—Eve, an on-chain utility token that will be tradable outside the game, and LUX, a token that’s purely for in-game use. Earlier last year, Pétursson told Decrypt that the game would feature “several currencies.”

CCP Games raised $40 million in 2023 to bring a blockchain game to market based on its Eve Online universe. Now with the NDA lifted and more players coming in via the free trial experience, we’re starting to get a richer look at what Eve Frontier is all about and how the crypto elements work.

“Overall, the response across the board to Eve Frontier leveraging blockchain in the way that we have, especially as it relates to modding and third-party development, has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Sisson. “It is becoming clearer to gamers that this is the technology that allows us to unlock our vision for the game that they want.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward