In a nostalgic twist on New Eden’s beloved daily ritual, CCP Games has announced its latest innovation: Downtime Simulator, an expansion that recreates the drama, stillness, and existential dread of server maintenance every hour.
Players opting into the feature will enjoy meticulously crafted interruptions lasting 15-30 minutes at regular intervals. Ships will freeze mid-warp, wallets will lock up, and chat channels will enter philosophical limbo, mirroring CCP’s proud heritage of scheduled quietude.
“We heard your complaints about server reliability and realized what players truly crave is more downtime,” said a CCP spokesperson. “Now capsuleers can organize their real lives around EVE, not the other way around.”
Early adopters report unexpected benefits: improved productivity, restored marriages, and even peace between highsec mining corps… at least temporarily. The game’s rhythm now mirrors the chaos of real life, one pause at a time.
However, controversy brews over the Unexpected Downtime microtransaction option. For just $4.99, players can trigger random logouts at peak moments, ensuring full immersion in technical disappointment.
One tester summed it up:
“It’s like CCP found a way to monetize my trauma. But hey! It’s lore accurate.”
As anticipation builds for patch notes that simply read “everything is temporarily broken,” the EVE community must decide: Is this expansion downtime well spent, or time that should’ve been spent elsewhere?
