CCP Games announced today the release of EVE Online: Revelations II, an expansion to the three-part Revelations series.

Revelations II sets the stage for the third chapter of Revelations to be released later this year and will feature enhancements for the most experienced players to the newest. It will introduce major challenges and complexities to the game, enabling players to engage in even more strategic warfare, providing significantly expanded content for exploration and offering more possibilities for sophisticated corporation and alliance management. In addition, it will include enhancements to EVE Online’s core technology to improve the player experience as part of CCP’s ‘Need for Speed’ initiative that addresses server and client performance issues through optimization of existing features and content. As with all previous expansions, CCP offers Revelations II as a free download to subscribers.

In particular, Revelations II enables greater opportunities for strategic operations between fixed structures in space by encouraging siege-type gameplay, enabling attrition warfare, opening up new tactical opportunities for smaller attack groups, improving the economic vitality of outposts and allowing individual outpost services to be attacked with precision strikes. New starbase tactics, for example, will be introduced that allow players to perform localized scanning for ships, jump between starbases owned by the same corporation and quickly bring capital ships into a battlefield – or prevent them from coming in. Players will also have direct command of starbase weapons, allowing them to control individual assets such as turrets and missile batteries.

The new Chapter also gives players more sophisticated tools for managing their corporations and alliances while providing transparency to ensure effective governance. Corporations will be able to take control of their finances by using divisional wallets to categorize corporate budgets and a transaction log for each wallet. They will be able to search corporate hangars and remotely manipulate assets. There will also be detailed shareholder reports, which list individual member ownership of corporation-issued stock.

For new players, Revelations II includes a completely revamped New Player Experience, which allows them to immerse themselves in the game and acclimate to the game more quickly. The revised tutorial begins directly in space in Revelations II, within a private environment accessible only to the new player. For more seasoned players, the Chapter introduces Level 5 Agents, offering the most challenging Player versus Environment (PvE) encounters ever seen in EVE Online, designed for capital ships or small gangs, and involving facing major adversaries who require significant firepower to take down.

In addition to numerous general improvements that support and enhance the performance of EVE Online, this release also sets the initial groundwork to provide full Vista support for future expansions.

“With Revelations II, players can explore new frontiers of EVE Online, experience new challenges, benefit from a significantly expanded array of tools and tactics and really test their skills,” said Nathan Richardsson, Executive Producer of EVE Online. “We believe these are some of the most advanced strategic, militaristic and economic elements seen in an MMOG and hope they will enable our pilots to enjoy a higher level of immersive, competitive gameplay.”