This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. It was written by Philip Palmer.

CCP Games has reported record breaking results for the launch of its popular space MMO, EVE Online, in its newest country, China. An amazing 30,000 users were reported to be playing at once, with nearly 200,000 registered on the first day of open beta. The Chinese version is run by Optic Communications, and is independant of its sister gameworld of the original EVE Online release.

“It was quite amazing to see the population of EVE China exceed the population of Iceland in the second day of open Beta testing,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games. “EVE China has been an exciting collaboration project and continues to be so, as we continue to refine the experience to accommodate for the steep growth rate of both our English and Chinese worlds.”

While the original launch of the game took place in 2003, several expansions have hit shelves in the last few years, the next in line being The Path of Kali, forecasted to release sometime this year.