Artificial intelligence research is plunging further into video games. 

Alphabet Inc.’s AI lab, Google DeepMind, announced plans Wednesday to train its technology on Eve Online, a beloved role-playing game set in outer space. 

As part of the arrangement, DeepMind will take a minority stake in Fenris Creations, an independent Icelandic company formed Wednesday after CCP Games, the creator of Eve Online, repurchased itself from Korean game-maker Pearl Abyss Corp. for $120 million in cash and cryptocurrency. The price was less than half of what Pearl Abyss paid for CCP Games in 2018. 

Eve Online “requires skills that AI has not yet fully mastered,” said Adrian Bolton, a senior director at DeepMind, such as “long-term planning and continual learning.” 

Players of the online science-fiction game operate spaceships and join “corporations” where they trade goods, participate in an economy and infiltrate enemies — sometimes as part of protracted heists. The game, which first launched 23 years ago, has been praised for giving players unprecedented power to deceive, scam and practice politics. Along the way, it has cultivated a highly intellectual fan base.

All of which made it an attractive source of complex social simulations for researchers at Google’s AI lab, who previously trained their technology on multiple games, ranging from Atari’s arcade classics to Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II.

Google DeepMind’s investment is “in the millions” of dollars, according to Fenris Creations Chief Executive Officer Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. Other investors include several Icelandic firms and individuals, he said. In a press release, the company said that in the fourth quarter of 2025 Eve Online generated the second-highest quarterly sales in the game’s history, including a “record-breaking” month in November.

“We jokingly say that the final boss for AI in games would obviously be Eve Online,” Pétursson said. “Eve is giving insights about our own society and the human condition.” 

Social-science researchers already study Eve Online, which last year appointed Stefán Þórarinsson, a former economist with the Central Bank of Iceland, to oversee its virtual economy. 

Google DeepMind will initially research players’ behavior on isolated Eve Online servers so that the work doesn’t impact the live game. At the same time, Pétursson said, Eve Online will use insights from the research to improve the game.

Currently, Fenris Creations is working on a successor title, Eve Frontier, and an “extraction-adventure” first-person shooter, Eve Vanguard. 

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Published on May 7, 2026