EVE Online developer CCP Games and partner Hadeon had a successful test of the first EVE: Aether Wars, a new take on EVE Online that featured over 10,000 spaceships in real-time battle.
EVE: Aether Wars is a free-for-all deathmatch powered by Hadeon’s Aether Engine. The engine was created to allow for a massive number of players to all join in on one experience. The engine taps into the power of Microsoft Azure to utilize the cloud to help scale up the player count.
The massive battle was a combination of EVE Online players and AI-controlled bots. Over 14,000 total participants joined the battle, with peak concurrents topping out at 10,412. That’s massive.
“We are thrilled to have successfully debuted the Aether Engine with EVE: Aether Wars,” Craig Beddis, Hadean’s CEO, said in a press statement. “A deathmatch of this magnitude couldn’t have been achieved without the support of CCP and EVE Online’s amazing community. After such an incredible showing at GDC, we’re even more excited about the possibilities our partnership presents to push the technological boundaries of what’s possible in the MMO space.”
Over the course of the tech demo, almost 89,000 ships were destroyed. Players and AI combined to fire 14.7 million torpedoes.
While EVE: Aether Wars had a huge turnout, the majority of participants were bots. This means Aether Wars did not break the world record for most concurrent players simultaneously involved in a single PvP battle. That record is still held by CCP, but for the legendary EVE Online Siege of 9-4RP2 battle, where 6,142 players were all active at the same time.
If you missed out on the EVE: Aether Wars test, don’t worry. More tests and planned for the future, and it’s possible this tech could help shape the future of EVE Online. Keep your eyes on CCP Games social feeds for more information about the next Aether Wars test.
So what do you think? Are you excited for the possibilities the Aether Engine brings to large-scale online worlds? Do you think EVE Online can break its own world record? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
