Eve Online gets an epic 4X board game, and the miniatures look incredible

polygon.com:

Eve Online, the famously complex spacefaring MMO, is being adapted into a board game. Iceland-based CCP Games has partnered with Titan Forge, a publisher known for its catalog of extraordinary miniatures, to bring Eve The Board Game to Kickstarter this fall. Polygon has your first look at the project — and its potent fleet of pint-sized plastic starships.

At its core, Eve Online is a 4X game. The 4X acronym stands for the genre’s four classic objectives: to explore the unknown, expand your empire, exploit the most resources, and ultimately to exterminate all opposition. While the 4X genre has long been popular on PC, it’s also been incredibly popular in board gaming. Titles such as Twilight Imperium, Eclipse, and Tiny Epic Kingdoms stand proud among the competition. There is even another high-profile 4X video game crossover currently in the works, with Paradox’s 4X game Stellaris currently being adapted by Academy Games.

But Eve Online has something that none of those games can hold a candle to, specifically some of the most ruthless players in the entire world. Because of those players, Eve is more than just a 4X game. It’s a kind of byzantine social experiment, that for the last 20 years has created some of the most enduring storylines in all of gaming. Even those who have never played the game will know the story of the ill-fated starship named Steve; of the cutthroat warlord named Mittani; and of the galaxy-spanning civil war that was bankrolled by a real-world casino. It remains unclear exactly how CCP and Titan Forge hope to bring those kinds of themes into the game.

“With its player-driven gameplay and complex virtual economy, EVE Online lends itself organically to a compelling board game experience,” offered