EVE Online studio Fenris open-sources its Carbon Engine after years of promises

Fenris Creations — formerly CCP Games — made good on a yearslong commitment on July 1, releasing the full source code for its Carbon Engine on GitHub. Carbon is the tech powering both EVE Online and the early access space survival game EVE Frontier.

The release covers the complete engine, not a trimmed-down or legacy version. Fenris first outlined the open-source plan during a late-2024 preview of EVE Frontier at the PC Gaming Show, alongside two other commitments: more action-oriented gameplay for Frontier and server-side modding support. All three have now been delivered — Frontier has dogfighting, the mod scene is up and running, and Carbon is fully public. Notably, Fenris' FPS project EVE Vanguard is being built on Unreal Engine rather than Carbon, so the open-source release covers the MMO side of the studio's portfolio.

Open-sourcing a production game engine is a rare move in 2025. Studios that once built their identity around proprietary tech — CD Projekt and its Red Engine being the most prominent example — have largely migrated to Unreal Engine, which recently previewed its sixth major iteration. Against that backdrop, Fenris is swimming against the current, and it matters: open engines mean community inspection, modding at a deeper level, and long-term preservation of the games built on them. EVE Online has been running for over two decades and remains one of the most storied sandboxes in MMO history, so keeping its underlying tech accessible has real longevity implications.

The Carbon Engine repositories are live on GitHub now. Fenris continues active development on EVE Frontier and EVE Vanguard simultaneously, so the open-source release doesn't signal a slowdown — if anything, it invites outside contributors into the ecosystem.