EVE Online's record-setting war ends with a whimper

A war of unprecedented magnitude in EVE Online is coming to an unexpected and anti-climactic end. For over a year, some of EVE Online's biggest player-run factions, including TEST Alliance, Pandemic Horde, Fraternity, and Brave Collective—a super-coalition named PAPI—have laid siege to the villainous Imperium with the sole intent of wiping them from the game entirely. The war has been brewing ever since another historic conflict from 2016 called World War Bee, and in the last year has resulted in some of the biggest fights in EVE Online's history. But after 13 long months of war, the PAPI coalition has all but dissolved right on the Imperium's front door.

World War Bee 2 is the second time some of EVE Online's biggest alliances have banded together to root out The Imperium. It's also the second time they've failed. Why the grudge? It's simple: The Imperium has, for years, dominated null-sec, the enormous lawless ring of star systems that surround New Eden's less hostile areas of the game. With some tens of thousands of players under its banner and an industrial infrastructure that could rival a small nation, The Imperium is the king of EVE Online—and it does its best to make sure everyone else knows it too.

It's only natural that so many thousands of players would want to see The Imperium completely crumble. But that's not what happened.