Upwell Hangars Evolved

eveonline.com:

Station dwelling capsuleers,

On behalf of Scotty the Docking Manager, we’re here to give you a behind the scenes look at our recently updated Upwell Hangars that came with the Uprising Expansion in November. Over the years, New Eden has become more visually vibrant and offered players an increasingly visceral experience. The most recent update brings even more immersion and interactivity with the brand new Upwell Hangars. This all comes as part of the EVE Evolved initiative, which continues the ongoing investment in building stronger foundations to support EVE’s future.

Evolving A Hangar

As part of a renovation project to upgrade New Eden’s iconic trade hub, the Jita Hangar saw glorious updates in 2021. A new station environment was also created for the new player tutorial while the NPE (new player experience) was being updated, welcoming new players even more warmly to New Eden. Both hangar updates were one-off creations, but they demonstrated a world of possibility when it comes to improving the player experience of being docked. What would it feel like if players had more possibilities for interactions with their ship – not just the one they’re piloting but also those parked in the same station?

During Fanfest 2022, we demonstrated a small platform in the Upwell hangar as an early work in progress, representing the goal to create a much more immersive hangar environment for players.

The road from demo to functional product was a long one, and required constant iteration along the way. However looking at the before and after pictures of the experience, it was more than worth it.

Just to show how far it’s come, here is a fun look at one of the earliest iterations compared to where it stands now:

Docking Sequence

In Uprising,