EVE Online is moving 2.4 million lines of code off a version that died in 2020
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EVE Online, which is the long-running space game Fenris Creations makes, is being moved off Python 2.7. That is sixteen years after it last changed language version, and six years after that version stopped being supported. The studio's own blog puts real numbers on the job, which is why it is worth reading rather than skipping as housekeeping.
Python is the programming language the game is largely written in: the blog counts 2.4 million lines of it. Version 2.7 reached the end of its life in 2020, so new tools are built for Python 3 instead.
A note on the studio's name, because it changed this year. Fenris Creations is the company behind the game. The blog credits it as one of the most significant contributors to Stackless Python, the version of the language EVE runs on. The name comes from its own announcement of 6 May 2026, which says the company behind EVE is once again becoming independent. We use the name the sources use.
The measured size of the problem
| Measure | Number |
|---|---|
| Lines of Python in the codebase | about 2.4 million |
| Files scanned under both versions | about 20,000 |
| Files that already worked under both | 95.9% on the first scan |
| Lines using syntax Python 3 rejects | about 3,300 |
| Old-style print statements | about 1,500 |
| Long number literals such as 123L | about 800 |
| Deprecated exception clauses | about 600 |
| Uses of the ancient not-equal operator | 50 |
| Lines that work under both and behave differently | about 20,000 |
That last row is the whole project. The example given is division. In Python 2, one divided by two is zero. In Python 3 it is 0.5. When the numbers involved are damage, currency or coordinates, each of those lines needs a person to decide, not a tool.
Our take: what it means for players
Nothing, this year, and that is exactly why we are writing about it.
A twenty-three year old world running on a dead language version is a slow-motion risk to everybody who has a character in it. Every year on Python 2 is another year of libraries falling out of reach, and more of the toolchain maintained in-house instead of spent on the game. Doing the migration is unglamorous, expensive and invisible when it works, which is why studios put it off until something breaks. Starting before something breaks is the correct call and deserves saying out loud.
The measurement discipline is the part worth copying. Running every file under both versions to find out how far the codebase actually is, rather than estimating, turned an unbounded fear into a countable list: 3,300 lines to fix mechanically and 20,000 to read. A studio that publishes those numbers is a studio that can be held to them.
Credit belongs to the players here as well as the engineers. The first stage was tested in late July on Singularity, the game's public test server, by the players, whom this game calls capsuleers, who volunteered to play a version of the game whose whole ambition was to feel identical. The studio thanks them and says they are the ones helping it get there. That is unpaid work protecting everybody else's assets, and it is worth naming.
The honest caveat is that stage one was the easy part by the studio's own account, and no completion date is given for the rest.
What's next
More test rounds on Singularity, with no dates announced, and the agent mission backend being prepared alongside them. Nothing here is dated, so nothing joins the calendar until the studio names a day.
Common questions
Why is EVE Online moving to Python 3?
Python is the programming language the game is largely written in, and version 2.7 stopped being supported in 2020. The blog says modern libraries, debuggers and profilers are all built for Python 3, and that every year on Python 2 puts more of them out of reach. The stated benefits are faster performance from recent Python 3 releases, better tools to find bugs sooner, and a codebase new developers can work on more productively.
How much of EVE's code is affected?
About 2.4 million lines across roughly 20,000 files. On the first scan, 95.9 percent of files already worked under both versions. That leaves about 3,300 lines that stop the build outright, plus roughly 20,000 lines that work under both and quietly behave differently.
Will players notice the EVE Python 3 migration?
The stated goal is that they do not. The studio says stage one changes are meant to be invisible, and asks players to file bug reports if anything feels off. The first set was tested on Singularity, the game's public test server, in July, and has now gone to the live server.
Written by 0hp from the publisher's own announcement, linked above, and every specific in it was checked against that page by a second pass before it published. Independent, and not affiliated with the publisher. Dates are announced or labelled as estimates. How this site is written, and how to correct it.
