CCP, one of the world’s largest independent game developers, have announced the availability of Eve Online, a leading massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), on the Macintosh and Linux platforms.

CCP and TransGaming collaborated to develop the Mac and Linux versions to allow users across platforms to play within the same perpetual online universe, enabling large-scale battles with thousands of players. Seamless integration of Eve Online’s original code for Microsoft Windows with Cider, for the Mac, and Cedega, for Linux, preserves the quality of the game’s performance on the new platforms. These engines allow the original code base to run on Mac and Linux and therefore deliver equivalent gameplay, as well as ensure that the game evolves congruently on all three platforms without delays.

“The explosive growth of Eve Online since its launch coupled with the strong demand from the Mac and Linux communities has encouraged us to make the game available on new platforms,” said Thor Gunnarsson, Vice President of Business Development of CCP. “Together with TransGaming, we have now achieved an important milestone in our drive to make the Eve universe pervasive and available to anyone who wishes to play.”

“The availability of Eve Online to the Mac and Linux communities extends the game to rapidly growing new communities who have been enthusiastically demanding the game on their platforms of choice,” said Vikas Gupta, CEO of TransGaming Technologies. “We are very pleased to see the efforts of our partnership come to fruition with the release of Eve Online for the Mac and Linux platforms.”

A free, 14-day trial is available for download at eve-online.com.