EVE Online's developer completed a $120 million management buyout from Korean publisher Pearl Abyss, regaining independence and renaming itself Fenris Creations. Google DeepMind also took a minority stake and kicked off a research collaboration.
The partnership will use an offline version of EVE Online as an AI training environment, focusing on long-term planning, memory, and continual learning. With over 22 years of operation, EVE Online boasts a player-driven economy, politics, and warfare — one of the few persistent virtual worlds with genuine complexity.
DeepMind Inception team director Alexandre Moufarek called EVE "a unique safe sandbox for testing general artificial intelligence." Just two weeks ago, Moufarek was recruiting game designers, product managers, and QA engineers for the Inception team — this deal confirms DeepMind is moving research prototypes like SIMA and Genie into actual game settings.
Fenris Creations CEO Hilmar Veigar stressed that early research won't connect to the live Tranquility server. DeepMind founding member Adrian Bolton will reveal more at next week's Fanfest 2026.