Incursion was announced on September 21, 2010. The expansion featured the "escalating attacks of the deadly Sansha's Nation". Players are able to join public fleets and co-operate to repel the Sansha incursions, receiving bounties and earning loyalty rewards. Incursion also includes many improvements as suggested by the CSM, as well as hardware upgrades, software improvements and new cluster components aimed at increasing game performance.

Additionally, the character creator was updated with CCP's Carbon character technology for new pilot portraits. Finally, CCP added a Sansha Mothership, the Revenant, Fighter-bombers, the Noctis salvaging vessel, improvements to NPCs and their AI, new loot and rewards, storyline events and a more dynamic and simplified system for Planetary Interaction. The web-based social networking platform, EVE Gate, and the official forums received updates in the Incursion expansion as well.

CCP released the Incursion expansion in three phases: a first-step patch with a collection of player-requested improvements on November 30, a second-step patch with hidden features before December 25, and a third-step patch that included key features of the expansion (Incarna Character Creator, Sansha Incursions) on January 18, 2011. CCP has stated that this method of implementation prevents a large number of bugs from infiltrating the code, and the key features "will benefit greatly from an additional level of polish."

During the second-step patch the learning skills were removed. Players were reimbursed in two ways, they got their invested skill points back which they then could redistribute to their liking or, when they hadn't already inserted the skillbook, they got the NPC price back.