EVE Online
Over 20 years of legendary space battles! Explore a massive living universe of danger and opportunity in a challenging and highly rewarding space adventure. Fight, trade, build, and connect with a universe driven and shaped directly by players.
MMORPGOpen WorldRole-PlayingSandboxSimulationStrategy
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- Released
- 2003
- Developer
- Simon & Schuster
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- 88
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- Not stated
What is EVE Online?
Over 20 years of legendary space battles! Explore a massive living universe of danger and opportunity in a challenging and highly rewarding space adventure. Fight, trade, build, and connect with a universe driven and shaped directly by players.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 6 May 2003 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Simon & Schuster, Fenris Creations |
| Publisher | Fenris Creations, Simon & Schuster, Atari |
| Platforms | PC |
| Genres | MMORPG, Open World, Role-Playing, Sandbox, Simulation, Strategy |
| Languages | 8 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q336177, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was EVE Online received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Metacritic page. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
- Color Alternatives
Hearing
- Custom Volume Controls
- Stereo Sound
- Surround Sound
Input
None declared
Difficulty
None declared
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | No |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Yes |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | Not stated |
| Add-on content | 22 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is EVE Online worth it?
73% of 39,389 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Mostly Positive. It is free to play, and critics score it 88/100.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is EVE Online? How long to beat it
Total play time for EVE Online is about 5680.9 hours to do everything, and around 1776.9 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 1776.9h | 8 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 3177.2h | 6 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 5680.9h | - |
EVE Online is free to play, so the only cost is your time: about 1776.9 hours to beat it.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
EVE Online system requirements
The minimum requirements from EVE Online's Steam page. These are what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings.
| Memory | 4 GB RAM (other games at this level) |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Dual Core @ 2.0 GHz, AMD Dual Core @ 2.0 GHz) |
| System | 64-bit OS required |
Where EVE Online sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueEVE Online plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
EVE Online price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: Free on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest EVE Online updates & patch notes
Pulled from EVE Online's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
What readers say about EVE Online
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 300 most recent negative Steam reviews of EVE Online on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Monetisation inside the game12 of 300 (4%)
On paper it's chugging along, in reality the game has been been pretty dead for a while, plagued by microtransactions to keep the company afloat.
Steam review, 14 June 2026 · 60 hours played · 205 readers marked it helpfulYou hit a hard wall on skill points extremely fast, and most of the interesting ships, modules, and skills are completely locked behind a paywall.
Steam review, 24 July 2026 · 153 hours played · 183 readers marked it helpful
A further 3 reviews call the game buggy or broken without saying how, which is why they are counted separately rather than assigned to a theme. Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where EVE Online appears
The ranked lists and finder pages EVE Online qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like EVE Online
24 games overlap with EVE Online on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are VEGA Conflict, Star Trek Online and PlanetSide 2.
EVE Online head to head
See EVE Online compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
Common questions about EVE Online
What platforms is EVE Online on?
EVE Online is available on PC. It first released in 2003.
Is EVE Online free?
Yes. EVE Online is free to download on Steam.
Do players recommend EVE Online?
73% of 39,389 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Mostly Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
What is the Metacritic score for EVE Online?
88 out of 100 for the PC version, as published on the game's own Steam store page. Steam can lag Metacritic by a few points.
Does EVE Online work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates EVE Online as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
Who made EVE Online?
EVE Online was developed by Simon & Schuster, Fenris Creations and published by Fenris Creations, Simon & Schuster, Atari.
Is EVE Online worth it in 2026?
73% of 39,389 Steam reviews are positive (Mostly Positive), and it is free to play. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
What are the system requirements for EVE Online?
At minimum, EVE Online needs 4 GB RAM, a Intel Dual Core @ 2.0 GHz, AMD Dual Core @ 2.0 GHz), from its Steam listing. That is what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings. Check it against your own PC on the can-I-run page.
How long does it take to beat EVE Online?
about 1776.9 hours for the main story, 3177.2 hours with the main extras, 5680.9 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.