On July 1, Fenris Creations (formerly CCP) completed the full open source release of its in-house Carbon Engine, the tech behind long-running MMO EVE Online and early access space survival game EVE Frontier. The Carbon Engine’s repositories are available now on GitHub.
It’s an impressive, surprising move in a time when proprietary game engines are increasingly rare. Even studios that were once defined by their in-house tech, like CD Projekt and its Red Engine, have abandoned it in favor of the ascendent Unreal Engine, which recently unveiled the first details of its sixth iteration. Notably, while Space MMOs EVE Online and Frontier are built on Carbon, Fenris’ FPS project Vanguard is being built with Unreal.
Something that really struck me here is that Fenris has repeatedly shown a capability and consistency in following through on its promises. When I first visited the studio at the end of 2024 for an early look at EVE Frontier in the PC Gaming Show, Fenris outlined an exciting, ambitious vision for its survival game. That vision included more action-oriented gameplay than EVE Online, one-of-a-kind server-side modding support, and open-sourcing the Carbon Engine.
Less than two years later, Fenris has made good on all three promises: Frontier has dogfighting now, the mod scene is active and intriguing, and now Carbon is open source. That last development particularly buoys my spirits at a time when tech and computing are becoming increasingly closed and proprietary.
Aftermath recently called the Steam Machine an “iconoclastic” device for its commitment to open, customizable computing in contrast with the wider drift of tech, and I feel much the same way about the direction Fenris is moving in.
While development continues on Frontier, Fenris is also working on the ambitious MMO-extraction FPS EVE Vanguard, and EVE Online continues to be one of the great homes of MMO shenanigans online. Recently, one newbie player was set for life thanks to an almost unheard of one-in-a-million drop.
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