Heading into EVE Fanfest 2025, I deeply underestimated the impact of this sci-fi MMO from CCP Games. I’d seen headlines surrounding the game every couple of years, but generally still saw it as a game with a niche but passionate community, destined to only occasionally break out when some world record was broken or a major heist was pulled off. After spending some time in Iceland around EVE Fanfest earlier this month, though, the true impact of EVE Online and CCP Games started to sink in.
I not only saw how passionate the community attending was, but I also saw EVE expanding with new games and a growing Icelandic indie scene that owes its current growth to EVE Online’s success. EVE: Vanguard is a promising shooter with the potential to garner a whole new audience, while Iceland’s indie game scene has the potential to be home to the next surprise indie hit.
“EVE Forever” was a phrase thrown around a lot at EVE Fanfest. While it’s a catchphrase meant to energize fans who made their way out to Reykjavik for this BlizzCon-like event, it speaks to something bigger. It suggests EVE in another sci-fi franchise that will have an undeniable legacy through the larger franchise and its impact on the emerging Icelandic video game industry.
More than one game
Although the EVE Online: Legion expansion was the centerpiece of EVE Fanfest this year, it was not the only game taking up time and attention on the show floor. On the second floor of the Harpa concert hall, where EVE Fanfest took place, players could check out EVE: Vanguard, a new MMO shooter that CCP Games London is developing. Vanguard is an extraction shooter like Arc Raiders or Marathon, where players drop onto planets, fight AI-controlled enemies and other players, and gather loot.
Even in this deep-in-development state, Vanguard feels smooth to play with weapons that pack a punch and lean more into sci-fi concept than your typical extraction shooter weapons. It also leans into MMO elements with a “Bastion” system that sees players fight for control over certain groups of planets, inevitably leading to conflicts as player Bastions expand into each other. As someone who could never get themselves too deep into EVE Online because of how hardcore it was, EVE: Vanguard felt much more instantly approachable as a PC shooter.
Its ideas of EVE Online connectivity and world persistence through the Bastion system also give it a leg up against more generically designed extraction shooters. It has even attracted developers like Senior Producer Jamie Stanton, who didn’t play much EVE Online before working at CCP, because they had faith in EVE as a franchise and its potential to draw people 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.
For those who don’t want to learn the ins and outs of a dense UI or play in Microsoft Excel as much as the game client, EVE: Vanguard will offer a much more appealing entry point to EVE when it launches in 2026. While I’m much less bullish on EVE Frontier, CCP’s Web3 survival MMO, it has also drawn a passionate audience participating in a hackathon at EVE Fanfest to help CCP build out that game. Toss in recent mobile games like EVE: Galaxy Conquest and EVE: Echoes, as well as a teased dice-based tabletop game, and by the end of the 2020s, EVE could have a fleet of popular games like it never has before.
An emerging industry
Even if you’ve never touched an EVE game or don’t plan to, you soon might find yourself playing an Icelandic indie game. Like CD Projekt Red helped jumpstart Poland’s video game industry over a decade ago, CCP did the same for Iceland’s local game dev scene. IGI chairman Halldór Kristjánsson discussed the history of Iceland’s game industry with me ahead of EVE Fanfest. For a long time, it was quite small outside of success stories 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 effects. Developers left CCP, eager to start or join independent studios, and more investment interest in such companies also popped up. Almost seven years after the acquisition, the effects of this are becoming clearer. World War 2 card game Kards, party game No Time to Relax, and survival MMO Pax Dei have come out and found modest success. More games are coming, and CCP let those devs demo them at EVE Fanfest 2025.
I loved 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 party game. Gang of Frogs taps into the formula of games like Helldivers 2 and Risk of Rain 2 to offer up an entertaining roguelite co-op shooter where players control cartoonish frogs rather than soldiers. Island of Winds is a single-player puzzle adventure game inspired by Iceland’s history and volcanically formed landscapes. Finally, Dig In is a new World War 1 strategy game where players build out trenches and have to deal with the fact that orders aren’t instant, but delivered over time.
I see breakout potential in these games. Walk of Life has a spark that could make it a Jackbox-like hit on Twitch, while Dig In can tap into the passionate history-driven strategy game audience. If any of the games I mention become a Balatro or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-like breakout hit, their existence can be traced back to EVE Online in some way, shape, or form.
The developers of these indie games were transparent about that fact as I spoke to them. Gang of Frogs‘ Lead Developer Ingólfur Halldórsson (previously a Software Engineer at CCP) went as 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 reflected by the the fact that ever Icelandic indie game developer I spoke to had at least one former CCP game dev on its staff, no matter the size of the studio.
EVE Online’s legacy
If you’re not deeply ingrained in EVE Online’s gameplay system and knowledgeable about the developer and player-influenced history of New Eden, then you may underestimate EVE’s impact. It draws a significant crowd of dedicated fans to a convention every year, has directly or indirectly influenced the creation of so many game studios throughout Iceland, and is gearing up to go even bigger and more mainstream thanks to games like EVE: Vanguard.
At EVE Fanfest 2025, spirits seemed high about the future of EVE and the Icelandic game industry. Of course, it’s too early to tell just how high the ceiling is for these EVE spinoffs and Icelandic indie games. CCP’s track record with Vanguard-like shooters isn’t great, as it shuttered PS3 game Dust 514 and canceled another EVE shooter codenamed Project Nova. Indies like Gang of Frogs or Walk of Life have the potential to break out, but the worldwide indie game scene is more crowded than ever. In 2025, no game is a guaranteed hit, even if it is tied to a well-known IP or has ample financial backing.
Still, CCP and the Icelandic game industry at large exude confidence and show growth at a time when many other parts of the video game industry are doing the exact opposite. Dig In design and Vitar Games founder Baldvin Albertsson pointed out that there isn’t much infighting because Iceland’s game industry is so young, and believes CCP’s effect on Iceland’s indie game scene shows the impact one studio can have on a “microscopic level.”
While I’m not sure I’ll have the time to immerse myself in EVE Online‘s intricacies anytime soon, it’s more likely than ever that I’ll feel the effects of the game. Barring any unforeseen shifts at CCP, EVE will be a sci-fi franchise that’s impossible to ignore. And even if EVE Online and its spinoffs go away one day, EVE will live through all of the independent game studios CPP had a part in creating. If I ever return to EVE Fanfest, I won’t be underestimating it anymore.
Disclaimer: Travel and accommodations for Digital Trends to attend EVE Fanfest were covered by Business Iceland.
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