EVE Online's next seasonal update (called a Quadrant) heralds the next chapter in EVE Online's ongoing alien invasion storyline. Called Eclipse, this Quadrant kicks off on April 6 and will introduce a string of smaller updates taking place over the next few months like all-new features, ships, and sweeping balance changes. It will also continue the ongoing Triglavian alien invasion storyline which as been taking place in EVE (not to be confused with EVE's other dramatic alien invasion last year), which is the primary focus of the new trailer embedded above.
But, before all that can happen, developer CCP Games wants players to go on a murderous Easter egg hunt.
Starting on April 6, The Hunt is a temporary event that capitalizes on the funny resemblance between EVE Online's escape pods and eggs. If you're unfamiliar with EVE Online, pods—as they're called by players—are mini spaceships that house the actual player character's body and sit inside of the bigger ships that they fly. When their ship is destroyed, a player's pod is jettisoned so they can make a hasty getaway and find a new ship to fly.
Sometimes, though, enemy players will also try to destroy your pod. It's the closest thing EVE Online has to real murder, as destroyed players lose their body and any precious neural implants they had equipped and wake up in a new clone often hundreds of light years away. It's regarded as an especially heinous act by EVE Online's NPC police force and comes with some hefty consequences if you do it in certain areas of EVE Online.
Normally there's no real benefit to "podding" another player except maybe preventing them from escaping, getting a new ship, and rejoining the fight. But The Hunt is changing that: Starting on April 6, any time you destroy another player's escape pod, there's a chance you can find their expensive neural implants (assuming they had any equipped) in the wreckage. It's a small little incentive to go out of your way to be extra evil this Easter season.
The Hunt will also spawn NPC pods around New Eden that players can find, triggering little mini-scenarios against NPC enemies with "potentially valuable [loot] drops." But that's not nearly as exciting.
Unfortunately, we don't have much more details on what else is coming in Eclipse beyond The Hunt. In a blog post, CCP Games simply said "the overall theme will revolve around shifting the balance of power in New Eden, and there will be events, celebrations, login campaigns, visual updates, huge balance changes, new and mysterious ships and weapons, as well as the final chapter of the Invasion expansion." We'll have to wait to see how that all takes shape, though.
You can check the EVE Online Update website for more info as it arrives, though.
