How Will Ridley Scott’s EVE Online Series Use The Game’s Lore?

And will Jita burn?

With The Expanse and Childhood’s End coming to television later this year, it seems the high concept space opera is coming back in vogue since the finale of the critical darling Battlestar Galactica. Well, now it seems we can add one more to the list of potential TV space adventures: an EVE Online adaptation.

Who’s adapting the game?

According to Variety, the TV show will be a co-production between two parties: Everest director Baltasar Kormakur and Ridley Scott’s (of Alien and Blade Runner fame) company Scott Free.

How are they adapting it?

We don’t think the project is currently that far along. No writers have been hired. We’re sure ideas are being kicked around, however.

How could they adapt it?

It’s tricky bringing a gaming property on screen. Even trickier is an MMO, which has substantially more setting and character lore than the average game. EVE in particular is also the top MMO that prides itself on being a player sandbox, which has made it one of the most interesting cases of emergent gameplay we’ve ever seen. Obviously, they can’t replicate the twists and turns of a game where most of the content is player generated, so they’ll have to concentrate on the different factions that have emerged from the setting to the game.

I’ve never played EVE. What is the background of the setting?

The game is set more than 20,000 years in the future when a resource starved human race began colonizing the Milky Wave. A wormhole was discovered that led to an unexplored galaxy dubbed “New Eden,” which started a gold rush-esque race to colonize as much of it was possible.

The wormhole eventually collapsed, cutting off the colonies from the rest of humanity and their supply chains. Over the next few thousand years, the humans in New Eden built their own civilizations and the knowledge of the old world faded away. Five vastly different interstellar factions eventually rose to prominence: The Jove Directorate, the Minmatar Republic, the Gallente Federation, the Caldari State, and the Amarr Empire.

What would be the angle of setting a story in this world?

Well, there’s two ways to do it: take the Game of Thrones approach and show the most influential people in the galaxy making civilization changing decisions… or you essentially make Firefly. Of course, you could do both with having different characters in different rungs of society… which is very doable but also pretty tricky.

Is this the first EVE spinoff?

Not at all. The PS3 game DUST 514 was a ground combat experience that tied into the core EVE MMO. While there was a lot of hype leading up to release, the game unfortunately landed with a bit of a thud. The flight simulator EVE Valkyrie has been a big showcase for the Oculus Rift and we’re eagerly anticipating its release.

When can we expect to see more about the EVE show?

Not for a while, as the wheels are just getting turning. It’s going to be a few years.