EVE Frontier Launches Free Remnant Access

Space survival MMO EVE Frontier is open once again in the form of Free Remnant Access, giving everyone an opportunity to sign up for a trial run as developer CCP Games continues to develop its massive web3-powered title.

What Can You Do in EVE Frontier’s Free Remnant Access?

Remnant Access is a trial period that gives anyone the chance to try out EVE Frontier for free for 10 days in closed alpha.

During this free trial, you can explore a massive universe while collecting resources and salvaging wreckages as you attempt to survive in an unforgiving world. Attempt to go solo or team up with other players and battle enemy factions. Work as a trader or become a master strategist and command your fleet to war. It’s up to you what you’d like to do in the lawless depths of space.

Playing during trial access will not give you any Founder Pack perks, nor any additional content or customization options. This is simply another free chance for anyone try out the web3 game and see what it’s like for themselves ahead of official launch, but as with any playtest, it’s also an important opportunity for the developers to get more constructive feedback, so if you want to help them develop an engaging blockchain gaming experience, your input matters here.

Aside from that publicly available info, I can’t really say much when it comes to gameplay, as everyone looking to play this early version of the game needs to sign an NDA, so you can’t share anything outside of certain Discord channels that can only be accessed by those who sign the NDA. But if you know how complex EVE Online is and you enjoy that, then you might like this blockchain-powered version as well. An official ‘first look’ video was published in early December last year, so that might be helpful to watch if you’re on the fence on jumping in yourself.

While no new gameplay additions were officially revealed, the gaming studio has announced their biggest engine update yet in the company’s entire history. They’ve decided to move over from the Stackless Python fork over to vanilla Python 3. Specifically, this means that the game now runs on Python 3.12. This has required them to make 4 million lines of Python code compatible with Python 3, among other big modifications, including an upgrade of all their development tools and a larger rewrite of most of their network stack. In the official blog post, they describe this whole process as “replacing the engine while the car is running.” That’s probably the best way to sum this all up.

As for what this means for the overall user experience, you might actually see some performance improvements thanks to this engine update. While it’s not completely certain if there is better performance across all parts of the game, the developers have noted that certain situations now come with a performance increase of 10% to 30%, including in moments such as firing weapons or having multiple players log in.

This playtest started on February 14th and will end on February 24th. Whether you missed out on previous phases or are a returning player, here’s how you can join in and experience this sci-fi MMO for a limited time.

How to Sign Up for EVE Frontier Remnant Access

You can sign up for Remnant Access by heading to the official trial page linked in the announcement. On that page you will have the option to register for trial access, which will require creating an account on the game’s official website using your email address.

Registration also requires signing an NDA, so you’re not allowed to publicly reveal anything about EVE Frontier. The only place where you can talk about it is in a dedicated NDA section of the game’s official Discord server. Once you’ve verified your email, head over to the account page to download the launcher for Windows or MacOS. You can also connect your Discord profile on the same page, which you’ll want to do if you want to gain access to NDA Discord channels.

The EVE Online creator secured $40 million back in 2023 to develop this web3 MMO, before sharing first details on it as Project Awakening in March 2024. Project Awakening was unveiled as EVE Frontier in September of that year, while Founder Access launched in December 2024. A couple of playtests have happened throughout all this time, with participants able to play and earn Founders Packs in the Phase V playtest.