New EVE Online: Havoc Expansion Announced At EVE Fanfest 2023

EVE Online is coming off a successful Fanfest late last month, and the team at CCP Games have released a new Pulse video highlighting the ongoing activities in EVE leading up till next month's Havoc expansion.

2023 has been a packed year full of incredible video game releases. While we have plenty of great games to play each month, with the fall season looking to be rather stacked, there are some games to keep tabs on for 2024 and beyond. Here are just a few of the new game announcements we saw during the month of September. These games are not ranked in any particular order. We just want to spread the word and keep you updated on some titles that looked particularly interesting to us.

Mortal Kombat fans are already getting through the latest installment available. After Mortal Kombat 11, the development team over at NetherRealm Studios opted to do something a bit different. We’re getting a reboot with Mortal Kombat 1, where the focus is on a brand new timeline. As a result, there are several changes, such as new alliances for different characters. Fortunately, NetherRealm Studios is known for delivering new characters into the Mortal Kombat games after they release, and the same trend will continue with Mortal Kombat 1.

As someone who fancies themselves a pirate in EVE Online, I was pretty stoked when I first heard about the changes and gameplay features coming to Havoc, the next expansion for the space-faring MMO. Pirate factions such as the Angel Cartel and Guristas are prominent NPC groups in New Eden, with ships from Angel Cartel making up some of my favorites in the MMO — the Machariel especially.

Monetization in gaming is, at times, seemingly out of control. From feeling nickel and dimed at every turn in some free-to-play titles to companies charging for head-start access and beta testing, it feels like there is no limit to the ways a major game company will try to get us to crack open our wallets.

At EVE Fanfest last week, I sat down with EVE Online game director Snorri Árnason for a wide-ranging chat about where the one-of-a-kind sandbox space MMO has been in recent years and where it's going. We talked about big things like Dust 514 and EVE Vanguard, with Árnason lamenting that if the former had been on PC «it would literally still be alive», but a smaller comment that also struck me as interesting was one in which Árnason expresses ambition to have football-style analysis of EVE's great battles.

It's happening again. As sure as Square Enix overestimating their sales projections, as sure as John Riccitiello pissing off every available customer, EVE Online developers CCP will try to make a first-person shooter set in the same universe.

As I walked into the main hall at EVE Fanfest 2023, prepped for the keynote announcements, the giant screen in the Laugardalshöll Arena was tuned into the Twitch stream of the MMO. In front of me was the giant Jovian stargate, tiny blips representing capsuleers eager to see what was happening in orbit around the structure.

EVE FanFest is celebrating 20 years of CCP's unique space MMO, and has given us our first look at new FPS module EVE Vanguard and the reveal of EVE's next expansion: Havoc, coming November 14. The clue's in the name. Following the successful overhaul of faction warfare in recent expansions, CCP has decided to mess with things in the only way EVE really knows how. More factions, more fighting, and more destruction.

Filmed last year at Fanfest 2022, a new documentary chronicling the making of EVE Online by The Escapist, is now live. The documentary takes viewers through the early years of the MMO's development, with interviews from developers chronicling the history.

The EVE Online community is known for being opinionated, dedicated, and also for their various charity and science efforts over the years. CCP Games, as part of Fanfest, announced phase four of Project Discovery, the program that works with researchers to conduct citizen science and collect data that has helped inform science on COVID-19 and more.

Razer recently held its annual RazerCon which showcases new releases planned for the future. These releases generally range from the expected to the surprising, and this year was no different.