EVE Online mobile spinoff MMO game, Project Aurora, is coming in 2018

Fans of the popular 14-year old space-based massively multiplayer PC game EVE Online will finally be able to play a similar game, set in that same universe, on their smartphones. CCP Games announced this weekend at its fan event EVE Vegas that the free-to-play mobile spinoff, currently named Project Aurora, will be launched sometime in 2018.

The mobile game itself will be developed by another company, PlayRaven. CCP claims that Project Aurora will contain elements that made EVE Online successful, including players teaming up with others online to battle other “corporations” and to control territory.  A report from 148apps.com, who got to play an early build of the game at EVE Vegas, claims that players will have a ton of upgrades to choose from so they can beef up their ship fleets, including boosts to mining activity, defenses, technology research and more. It adds that the developers are trying to make the game easy for newcomers to play, while still containing the type of deep research trees and systems that hardcore EVE Online players love. However, there apparently won’t be any kind of cross-platform link or play between EVE Online and Project Aurora.

Project Aurora will get a soft launch in a few select countries before its worldwide release. The game will not be the first mobile spinoff from the EVE Online universe. EVE Gunjack, a space-based rail shooter title, is available for the Samsung Gear VR mobile headset, while its sequel, EVE Gunjack 2, is currently an exclusive for Google’s Daydream VR platform.

It will be very interesting to see if Project Aurora will be as complex as its PC counterpart. In its long history, EVE Online has featured massive space battles with as many as 4,000 pilots online at one time. It’s also known for its deep economic system, which allows players and corporations to actively steal and even extort in-game money and property from others.