Fenris Creations CEO on EVE Fanfest 2026, Rebranding & Google Deepmind Partnership

EVE Online's developer is coming up on 30 years of existence, and the company is as ambitious as ever according to CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson.

To a certain degree, Fenris Creations (once CCP Games) was the Icelandic game industry for a while, and it's boosted the scene and other creators from the region since. Through EVE Online and other pursuits, the team built its MMORPG space sandbox into a world-renowned network of alliances, enemies, economics, politics, and endless stories. At EVE Fanfest 2026, Fenris Creations celebrated taking its fate into its own hands, bidding fond farewell to its parent company and supporting partner, Pearl Abyss, and bringing full ownership back home. For CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson, it’s the start of an amazing new chapter, and it marks a grand transition as the company continues to expand what players can do with the EVE universe, as well as the stories that have been told so far and what the game is capable of beyond gameplay.

EVE is in a great place and headed toward bright pastures in multiple directions. EVE Online proper is getting the Cradle of War expansion with a new starting zone, new ships, and military campaign system. EVE Frontier Cycle 6 is bringing a slew of improvements to ship-building, control, and interaction with the sandbox, as well as improved creator tools. EVE Vanguard is getting a major playtest with improved gunplay, new enemies, and much more. Oh, and meanwhile, EVE is having its history written in blood in an epic Icelandic poem Petursson hopes to put on the moon someday.

“I want to find crazier places to place [The Capsuleer Edda,] and by next year I’m hoping to have more focus on that,” Petursson shared before letting me in on his dream placements. “I want to put one in the Pyramids and I want to put one in space, ideally on the moon.”

Unrealistic? Yes, currently, but Petursson believes in a long enough timeline where if “EVE Forever” continues, than the dream can be achieved. “Life is long… when you think of ‘EVE forever,’ we tend to find a way,” he concluded.

The Google Deepmind announcement alongside Fenris' rebranding was also of interest to many during EVE Fanfest 2026. Through this partnership, Fenris is lending Google an offline, disconnected version of EVE Online that the Deepmind team will use to train its models on complex systems. While a quick read of the details makes it easy to see this didn’t mean generative AI was coming to EVE Online, it still raised concerns. Nonetheless, Petursson says it’s about advancing and understanding a technology that needs to be understood and utilizing its benefits responsibly.

“[These are] powerful new tools. You can use them for good and bad,” Petursson explained. “Some of them are a little bit like a bulldozer. You don’t put the bulldozer in the rose garden, but it boosts utility regardless. And it’s more just figuring out how can we as a relatively small company… can tackle bigger problems by using more powerful tools.”

Petursson stressed that Fenris Creations will not compromise its standards of creativity and output to use any technology, and points back to EVE Frontier, which uses blockchain technology, as a test case of its responsible use of new tools.

“[Blockchain is] another hot topic with gamers, for very justifiable reasons,” Petursson pointed out. “And I think we’ve come up with a cool way where the open-modding aspects of Frontier are kind of next-level.”

Fenris Creations had a lot to be proud of at EVE Fanfest 2026 and the future looks bright for EVE in its numerous forms. Putting a book on the moon will likely be a multi-year pursuit, so keep your eyes on the EVE series topic for more updates on that and other stories from the EVE universe.

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