Table of Contents
Table of Contents
More than one sport
An rising business
EVE Online’s legacy
Heading into EVE Fanfest 2025, I deeply underestimated the influence of this sci-fi MMO from CCP Games. I’d seen headlines surrounding the sport each couple of years, however usually nonetheless noticed it as a sport with a distinct segment however passionate group, destined to solely often get away when some world document was damaged or a significant heist was pulled off. After spending a while in Iceland round EVE Fanfest earlier this month, although, the true influence of EVE Online and CCP Games began to sink in.
I not solely noticed how passionate the group attending was, however I additionally noticed EVE increasing with new video games and a rising Icelandic indie scene that owes its present development to EVE Online’s success. EVE: Vanguard is a promising shooter with the potential to garner a complete new viewers, whereas Iceland’s indie sport scene has the potential to be house to the following shock indie hit.
“EVE Forever” was a phrase thrown round rather a lot at EVE Fanfest. While it’s a catchphrase meant to energise followers who made their method out to Reykjavik for this BlizzCon-like occasion, it speaks to one thing larger. It suggests EVE in one other sci-fi franchise that can have an plain legacy by way of the bigger franchise and its influence on the rising Icelandic online game business.
More than one sport
Although the EVE Online: Legion enlargement was the centerpiece of EVE Fanfest this 12 months, it was not the one sport taking on time and a focus on the present flooring. On the second flooring of the Harpa live performance corridor, the place EVE Fanfest passed off, gamers may take a look at EVE: Vanguard, a brand new MMO shooter that CCP Games London is creating. Vanguard is an extraction shooter like Arc Raiders or Marathon, the place gamers drop onto planets, battle AI-controlled enemies and different gamers, and collect loot.
Even on this deep-in-development state, Vanguard feels clean to play with weapons that pack a punch and lean extra into sci-fi idea than your typical extraction shooter weapons. It additionally leans into MMO parts with a “Bastion” system that sees gamers battle for management over sure teams of planets, inevitably resulting in conflicts as participant Bastions broaden into one another. As somebody who may by no means get themselves too deep into EVE Online due to how hardcore it was, EVE: Vanguard felt way more immediately approachable as a PC shooter.
Its concepts of EVE Online connectivity and world persistence by way of the Bastion system additionally give it a leg up towards extra generically designed extraction shooters. It has even attracted builders like Senior Producer Jamie Stanton, who didn’t play a lot EVE Online earlier than working at CCP, as a result of that they had religion in EVE as a franchise and its potential to attract folks in.
“I think the power of the EVE brand and the reputation that it has is going to draw in a lot of players who, even if they don’t want to play [EVE: Online], will want to be a part of that universe,” Stanton tells Digital Trends.
CCP
For those that don’t need to study the ins and outs of a dense UI or play in Microsoft Excel as a lot as the sport consumer, EVE: Vanguard will supply a way more interesting entry level to EVE when it launches in 2026. While I’m a lot much less bullish on EVE Frontier, CCP’s Web3 survival MMO, it has additionally drawn a passionate viewers collaborating in a hackathon at EVE Fanfest to assist CCP construct out that sport. Toss in current cellular video games like EVE: Galaxy Conquest and EVE: Echoes, in addition to a teased dice-based tabletop sport, and by the tip of the 2020s, EVE may have a fleet of common video games prefer it by no means has earlier than.
An rising business
Even in the event you’ve by no means touched an EVE sport or don’t plan to, you quickly would possibly end up enjoying an Icelandic indie sport. Like CD Projekt Red helped jumpstart Poland’s online game business over a decade in the past, CCP did the identical for Iceland’s native sport dev scene. IGI chairman Halldór Kristjánsson mentioned the historical past of Iceland’s sport business with me forward of EVE Fanfest. For a very long time, it was fairly small outdoors of success tales like CCP and Plain Vanilla Games’ QuizUp. Then, in 2018, CCP Games was acquired by Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss for $425 million.
According to Kristjánsson, this had many downstream results. Developers left CCP, keen to start out or be a part of unbiased studios, and extra funding curiosity in such corporations additionally popped up. Almost seven years after the acquisition, the consequences of this have gotten clearer. World War 2 card sport Kards, occasion sport No Time to Relax, and survival MMO Pax Dei have come out and located modest success. More video games are coming, and CCP let these devs demo them at EVE Fanfest 2025.
I cherished my time with Walk of Life, a follow-up to Porcelain Fortress’ No Time to Relax that doubles down on being a comedic life-sim occasion sport. Gang of Frogs faucets into the system of video games like Helldivers 2 and Risk of Rain 2 to supply up an entertaining roguelite co-op shooter the place gamers management cartoonish frogs relatively than troopers. Island of Winds is a single-player puzzle journey sport impressed by Iceland’s historical past and volcanically shaped landscapes. Finally, Dig In is a brand new World War 1 technique sport the place gamers construct out trenches and should take care of the truth that orders aren’t immediate, however delivered over time.
I see breakout potential in these video games. Walk of Life has a spark that would make it a Jackbox-like hit on Twitch, whereas Dig In can faucet into the passionate history-driven technique sport viewers. If any of the video games I point out turn into a Balatro or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-like breakout hit, their existence may be traced again to EVE Online indirectly, form, or kind.
The builders of those indie video games have been clear about that reality as I spoke to them. Gang of Frogs‘ Lead Developer Ingólfur Halldórsson (beforehand a Software Engineer at CCP) went so far as to say, “I don’t think there’s any studio in Iceland that has not had some kind of personal connection to CCP,” and that was mirrored by the the truth that ever Icelandic indie sport developer I spoke to had not less than one former CCP sport dev on its workers, regardless of the scale of the studio.
EVE Online’s legacy
If you’re not deeply ingrained in EVE Online’s gameplay system and educated concerning the developer and player-influenced historical past of New Eden, then you might underestimate EVE’s influence. It attracts a major crowd of devoted followers to a conference yearly, has straight or not directly influenced the creation of so many sport studios all through Iceland, and is gearing as much as go even larger and extra mainstream because of video games like EVE: Vanguard.
At EVE Fanfest 2025, spirits appeared excessive about the way forward for EVE and the Icelandic sport business. Of course, it’s too early to inform simply how excessive the ceiling is for these EVE spinoffs and Icelandic indie video games. CCP’s observe document with Vanguard-like shooters isn’t nice, because it shuttered PS3 sport Dust 514 and canceled one other EVE shooter codenamed Project Nova. Indies like Gang of Frogs or Walk of Life have the potential to interrupt out, however the worldwide indie sport scene is extra crowded than ever. In 2025, no sport is a assured hit, even whether it is tied to a widely known IP or has ample monetary backing.
Still, CCP and the Icelandic sport business at giant exude confidence and present development at a time when many different components of the online game business are doing the precise reverse. Dig In design and Vitar Games founder Baldvin Albertsson identified that there isn’t a lot infighting as a result of Iceland’s sport business is so younger, and believes CCP’s impact on Iceland’s indie sport scene reveals the influence one studio can have on a “microscopic level.”
While I’m unsure I’ll have the time to immerse myself in EVE Online‘s intricacies anytime soon, it’s extra doubtless than ever that I’ll really feel the consequences of the sport. Barring any unexpected shifts at CCP, EVE might be a sci-fi franchise that’s inconceivable to disregard. And even when EVE Online and its spinoffs go away sooner or later, EVE will reside by way of all the unbiased sport studios CPP had an element in creating. If I ever return to EVE Fanfest, I received’t be underestimating it anymore.
Disclaimer: Travel and lodging for Digital Trends to attend EVE Fanfest have been lined by Business Iceland.