CCP, one of the world's leading independent game developers, has announced the features for the upcoming free expansion, EVE Online: Empyrean Age. Slated for a June 10 release, Empyrean Age brings an explosive end to the fragile peace that has existed for one hundred years between the four central races of New Eden and entices players to pledge fealty to their faction of choice to gain fame, wealth and power.

The features page at www.eveonline.com/empyreanage/ highlights the expansion's contents: the introduction of a faction ranking system, new militias being mustered, fresh agents pertaining to the massive conflicts, a dynamic new structure of system occupancy, details on hidden deadspace complexes and a whole new region in space, "Black Rise."

EVE Online: Empyrean Age incorporates elements of fiction that will be introduced in a novel by the same name, slated for a June 19th release, by Tony Gonzales. The author of many popular web-novellas and short stories, Gonzales' novel takes the reader through time and space, bridging the passage of time between the somewhat harmonious setting of New Eden as it exists for players now to a world of broken alliances on the brink of war.

After celebrating the fifth anniversary of EVE Online's initial release on May 6, CCP recently announced the formation of the Council of Stellar Management, a democratically-elected group of player representatives who will collaborate with the developers of EVE Online to address issues important to the community and provide input for keeping EVE going strong for years to come.