Google Buys Minority Stake in Eve Online Maker to Train DeepMind on Complex Player Behaviour

Google’s DeepMind is turning to one of the most complex online games ever made to push its AI research. The company has taken a minority stake in Fenris Creations, the studio behind long-running space MMO Eve Online, in a deal that will let DeepMind study how players behave inside the game.

The investment, described as being “in the millions” of dollars by Fenris Creations CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, deepens Google’s use of games as a testbed for advanced AI models. Bloomberg first reported the partnership.

Under the agreement, DeepMind will train its AI technology on Eve Online, a space-based RPG that has been running for more than 20 years. The research will begin on isolated servers, where DeepMind will analyse player behaviour in a controlled environment rather than the live game universe.

Adrian Bolton of DeepMind said the lab is interested in challenges where current AI systems still struggle, highlighting “long-term planning and continual learning” as key hurdles. Eve Online’s design makes it especially suited to that kind of work: players are given wide freedom in how they navigate the universe, form alliances, wage wars and manage resources, creating a complex social and strategic space to study.

Pétursson described Eve as a kind of ultimate challenge for AI in games, saying the team “jokingly” calls it the “final boss for AI in games.” He added that the virtual universe has long been a lens on real-world behaviour: “Eve is giving insights about our own society and the human condition.”

Google and Fenris say the collaboration will not only focus on research. They claim it will “also explore new gameplay experiences enabled by these technologies,” though they have not provided concrete details on what those experiences might look like or how they would be integrated into Eve or its related titles.

The Google deal arrives alongside a significant shift for the Eve business. CCP Games, the Icelandic developer that originally created and maintained Eve Online, has been rebranded as Fenris Creations. The name change follows the company’s purchase of the rights to Eve Online back from Korean developer Pearl Abyss.

Fenris Creations is now responsible for Eve Online and a growing family of titles in the same universe:

• Eve Online: the flagship space MMO, known for its player-driven economy, sprawling wars and open-ended political and social structures.
• Eve Vanguard: an upcoming FPS-focused spinoff set in the Eve universe.
• Eve Galaxy Conquest: a recently launched mobile title extending the franchise to smartphones.
• Eve Frontier: a blockchain-based spinoff that was previously known as Project Awakening.

For DeepMind, the partnership continues a strategy of using games to test and refine AI models. The lab has previously trained its systems on a wide range of titles, from classic arcade games to the real-time strategy game StarCraft II. Eve’s persistent world and emphasis on emergent social behaviour present a different scale and type of challenge, demanding long-horizon decision-making and adaptation over time.

For players, the most immediate implication is that their in-game actions will become training material and research data. The companies say they aim to translate that work into new gameplay experiences, but for now have offered only broad promises, not specifics.