Taking place 21,000 years in the future, the fictional background story of Eve Online explains that long ago humankind, having used up most of Earth`s resources, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. Eventually, humans expanded to most of the galaxy. Resources became contested and war broke out. When a natural wormhole was discovered, dozens of colonies were seeded at its other end, in an unexplored galaxy dubbed `New Eden`. An artificial wormhole generator was built to support the collapsing wormhole. When the natural wormhole collapsed, however, it destroyed the generator with it.

Cut off from Earth and its much-needed supplies, New Eden`s colonists starved in the millions. Five known colonies managed to return to prominence, eventually rebuilding society together. These colonies make up the five major empires in Eve: the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, the Caldari State and the Jove Empire. All but the Jove Empire are playable; CCP said that they intend to use the race within the Eve storyline.

In addition to different backgrounds and histories, each of the the races have characteristic ships. The Minmatar have the fastest ships in the game and use projectile turrets; Amarr ships are well-rounded and use lasers, Gallente ships can use the most drones and utilise particle blaster turrets, and Caldari ships use missiles or railguns and have the largest amount of shields (they are also the slowest). Not all ships fit under these generalizations: there are several ships that mix the race characteristics, and some completely unique ships.

Players start the game by either selecting a previously-created character or by creating a new one. Each Eve Online account allows for up to three characters to be made. When players create a new character they start by choosing one of the four playable races of Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar and Caldari. Each race is further divided into three bloodlines that give characters different pre-defined abilities. After further refining the character`s starting skills by selecting features such as ancestry and career the new character is ready to begin its life in the Eve Online universe.

Interstellar combat is a prime feature of EVE Online