EVE FanFest 2026 is making not only EVE Online history, but video game history, as players are invited to donate a drop of blood to make their permanent mark in The Capsuleer Edda.
If you are anything like me, that sounds a little culty when you hear it. First announced at EVE FanFest 2025, I spent a lot of time wondering what the hell was going on, but after more information and deeper dives have become available, it is actually pretty poetic. “It is the entire history of the capsuleers of New Eden, written in their own blood, designed to last for millennia.”
With that, though, it is certainly unconventional, but that is in EVE’s blood (get it?). When talking to Fenris Creations (formerly CCP Games) Community Manager, Peter Farrell, he really doubled down on that sentiment and explained why the Capsuleer Edda makes sense for the community.
“It is the entire history of the capsuleers of New Eden, written in their own blood, designed to last for millennia.”
“EVE has a long history of being a little weird, and our players are very much here for it. We’ve done chess boxing, we have a monument here in Reykjavik, two history books have been written, we’ve even sent things into space! And along the way, our players have been here for it. In short: we may be weird, but our players really match our freak.”
He went on to discuss how quickly the players jumped on board, “The best part was that when signups opened, the community barely blinked. That’s what makes EVE players special: they don’t just accept the strange, ambitious ideas that make New Eden what it is, but they meet us there.”
Before we get ahead of ourselves, no, EVE Online players are not being hooked up to blood-sucking machines this weekend at EVE FanFest, though based on Farrell’s comments, I bet a few Capsuleers would be willing. FanFest 2026 attendees are invited to donate a drop of blood, “which will be infused with a historically based 17th-century ink structure.” You can read more about the process on their official website.
I was able to sit down with Dr. Mark Crowther, who is a long-time EVE Online player and also the chair of the department of medicine at McMaster University and a clinical hematologist. Originally, the promise of a “history written in blood” was something that just wasn’t doable. Crowther happened to be at that keynote, and in a longer story, which I will share in an interview to come, he was able to come up with a process that would literally allow the Capsuleer Edda to be not only long-lasting with a mix of ink and blood, but with the science behind it, the company could prove that the player’s blood was actually incorporated.
“That’s what makes EVE players special: they don’t just accept the strange, ambitious ideas that make New Eden what it is, but they meet us there.”
“So I think after probably on the second call, I convinced Hilmar [Smári Finsen] and his colleague Christian that there was a way of actually meeting the commitment that Hilmar Pétursson had, which was to be able to tell individual players, you are incorporated, your blood is incorporated into the ink that is being used to write the text…So if an individual member three years from now gets in touch with Hilmar and says, ‘Can you prove that I am in the blood that’s been used to write this story, in the ink that’s being used to write this manuscript with the highest degree of scientific rigour?’ We could absolutely say yes to that question.”
But why did they need this process? Writing with blood is pretty heavy-metal, anyway. Crowther explained, “It’s not ink, so you can’t actually write with it. Like, it doesn’t record anything. And the second thing is it’s a biohazard. And what you end up with is a very expensive biohazard.”
I asked Dr. Crowther to explain the process of how it all works to me, as someone who has not spent their life studying blood, and also how they are making it safe for players. “A blood sample is, you get your little finger poked, you put it on a piece of filter paper. It’s a very common technique we use for scientific investigations because then the filter paper is just allowed to dry…Then, the filter papers are taken by a company here in Iceland.
There are no identifiers on the filter paper, so security is really important here. And then the blood will be extracted from those filter papers, and from that blood, the DNA of every single person will be extracted. But again, it’s not linked backwards. So you can’t tell that this was my blood because I’ve donated, we will make it safe. Meaning, get rid of the biohazard part of it.
Then, we will extract the DNA, stabilize it, and then we chop it up into little bits. And the reason we do that is we don’t want to be able to go in there and say, ‘I want to bring the whole Mark Crowther out of there.’ I want to be able to say that Mark Crowther is in there, but not in one complete thing, because people would be concerned about the fact that we could suck individual genomes out. We can’t do that. We’ll just have a big soup that contains little pieces of everybody.”
I can’t say I know many video games, game studios, or communities that would mark their history in blood—in anything, you’d think Diablo. But after hearing from Fenris Creations CEO, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, it all starts to make sense, “For Fenris Creations and EVE Online, the Capsuleer Edda carries a special weight. It connects who we are as an Icelandic company with the living history of New Eden, a universe shaped by its players over more than 20 years.”
“It connects who we are as an Icelandic company with the living history of New Eden, a universe shaped by its players over more than 20 years.”
Iceland has held a special place in my heart for the last four years, since I first travelled there for Iceland Innovation Week. That was my first encounter with the then-CCP games, now-Fenris Creations. I learned that week that Iceland just…does things differently. Everything from the way they develop games from the ground up involving their community, to the pub crawl, which invited visitors on a tour of their beautiful city with devs, right down to the Norse cheer, “Skál!”
There is a welcoming aura in everything they do, but that is just a part of who they are, fundamentally. Pétursson talked more about Iceland and tradition when explaining the Capsuleer Edda.
“In Iceland, storytelling is not just tradition. It is almost a calling. It is often said that one out of every ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime. While others may dream of running a restaurant, Icelanders dream of writing a story.
EVE has always been part of that lineage. It is a vast, collective saga written by its players. Much like the original Eddas, it emerged from isolation, harsh beauty, resilience, and the need to build strong communities in an unforgiving world. These are deeply Icelandic themes, and they found their way naturally into New Eden.
Bringing this together with the Icelandic manuscript tradition feels natural to us. The Capsuleer Edda is our way of honouring the stories our players have created and preserving them in a form that reflects where we come from.”
When asked if he would be participating, I was met with an enthusiastic, “Of course I’m taking part in the Capsuleer Edda!” and my bet would be that he is the first in line. (Spoiler alert: He did it!)
Twenty years of EVE Online history will be preserved in verse on vellum, a material with great durability, paired with a mix of blood and ink meant to stand the test of time. CGM was also able to pick the brain of one of the writers for the Capsuleer Edda, Andri Snær, who explained why EVE Online is so significant to Iceland and the symbolism behind the Capsuleer Edda.
“When a game of the quality of EVE is created in Iceland — with almost as many inhabitants spending their time as the whole nation of Iceland — it becomes urgent to bring poetry into it — as the game has proven to be a real place of friendship and drama, meaningful experiences and deep culture.
And by making a backup of the game in verse on vellum to last for 5000 years, we are just continuing that tradition as this community deserves and needs a founding poem, and then the EVE creators added another layer to it — to include a backup of the players themselves with drops of blood in the ink.”
In his comments to me, Snær said one of the most beautiful things with regard to the game, the future and what the Capsuleer Edda stands to be:
“So after 5000 years — after the great event — the game can be rebooted, and the players will reemerge. And then all paper will have crumbled, all our digital records erased — this might be the only surviving relic of our ancient civilization.”
EVE FanFest 2026 attendees are able to make a mark on New Eden, Iceland, and history, like the world of gaming has never seen before
