Net Ease and CCP launched a new chapter in the story of sci-fi MMORPG set in the EVE universe. The Chinese gaming giant and the Icelandic set us on course for adventure when EVE Echoes blasted onto mobile screens earlier this month.

It released on August 13 on both iOS and Android and contains over 8000 solar systems. Players are encouraged to take their own path, just like the main game. You can take part in mining, trading, industry, and more.

EVE Echoes is the sort of sandbox that is both utterly brutal and almost soothing experience. Much like the desktop game, it is easy to just waste time travelling between the stars and then lose everything because you forgot which space station you left your good ship docked in.

CHARACTER CREATION

You get to see your character a total of one time in Eve Echoes, so it isn’t surprising that character creation is fairly limited. There are four factions available to choose from with each one broken down into four bloodlines. Each faction comes with a background story three or four sentences in length. More importantly your faction choice determines your starting ship. Each faction is broken down into three Bloodlines but these do nothing more than add some background flavor and character appearance choices.

You will also configure the CreoDron, your Intelligent Assistant. There are a total of six voices to choose from and seeing as how you will hear this voice throughout the tutorials make sure to pick one you like. Oh, and don’t forget to name your character and CreoDron.

INTO THE COCKPIT

The default view of your ship has a circular ship attribute HUD front and center, giving Eve Online players the familiar view of their ship’s current status. This HUD shows important information like shield and armor status, capacitor charge, and ship speed. To the right of the attributes are the icons representing the rigs fitted to your ship, located for easy activation with a quick tap of your thumb.

Also located on the right side of the screen is the Overview icon. Pressing this will expand and collapse a list of all nearby objects, be it another ship, celestial body, station, or other point of interest. The Overview is instrumental in navigating your ship; tapping any item listed will pop up a context sensitive menu of available actions. This would include initiating a warp to another location, pulling up the mining interface for a celestial body, target lock-on, and gathering up loot after a battle.

This same popup function applies outside of the Overview as well. Tapping on a ship or other object on the screen will bring up a radial menu giving a contextual list of actions that can be taken, while tapping and holding on a target will bring up an info panel if one exists for that item. All other menus follow this same routine, making for a uniform feel throughout the entire UI.

There have also been a few bells and whistles thrown into the interface update. Something as simple as having an Easy Lock button pop up on screen when your targeting computer isn’t fully saturated allows you to lock onto multiple targets with a single tap. This type of quality of life improvement makes the game more accessible to new players without making major changes to the gameplay veteran EO players are used to. And speaking of keeping those vets happy, things like manual lock-ons and ship maneuvering are still there.

INTO THE UNKNOWN

Your Intelligent Assistant is your helpful companion right from the first time you log into the game. For first time players your IA will walk you through the basic tutorial, teaching you how to navigate using the Overview menu. From there it will take you to a station and introduce you to the main character screen, showing you how to access your inventory, upgrade your ship fittings, and begin leveling up your skills and tech level. The basic tutorial ends with you heading out for a quick combat lesson.

From there it’s up to you to forge your own path in New Eden. New arrivals to New Eden can continue their training by working through several advanced tutorials that serve as a quick start guide. Completing the tasks in the advanced tutorials will introduce you to mining, combat, manufacturing, and the already growing list of Corporations. The tutorials are a great refresher course for anyone who has been away from Eve for a while, but any hardened vet could just skip them and head straight to their preferred way of making a living among the stars. Whether you choose to complete the advanced tutorials or not, the IA will take its place in the bottom left of the screen, always available whenever you need quick help on a topic.

For a mobile port, EVE Echoes is an incredible experience, it brings together many of the aspects of its desktop brethren while stripping moldings some of the more autonomic systems for the casual mobile gamer. It’s a game with so much variety, pilots could get lost warping from one system to the next and yet, that complexity provides a ton to discover. My only suggestion for players is that if you want to seriously get into EVE Echoes, buy a mobile designed to give you the maximum screen space because EVE Echoes complexity makes for a particularly busy UI. Anyway, who would want to witness the gargantuan space corporations blowing up millions of ISK on a 5-inch screen? We all know it will happen If you always wanted to get into EVE but never had the time to invest, this might be the right time for you to get started and build your own space-faring empire.

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