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EVE Online Project Discovery Phase Four & mobile app announced at EVE Fanfest 2023

EVE Online's Project Discovery has allowed real-world scientists to team up with EVE players in the development of credible research on COVID-19.

TJ Denzer

September 22, 2023 6:15 AM

Image via CCP Games

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For quite a few years now, CCP Games has offered an interesting twist on its popular EVE Online MMO universe with Project Discovery, a citizen science initiative that allowed that whole of the EVE player base to contribute positively to real scientific research on medical matters such as COVID-19. Now, CCP has announced that EVE Online’s Project Discovery is entering its fourth phase, and that means not only expanding its application to further causes, like cancer research, but also launching a companion mobile app for Project Discovery in the form of the Play Science app and making the project’s dataset openly available for the development of research algorithms.

CCP Games announced Phase Four and the Play Science mobile app for Project Discovery during EVE Fanfest 2023.

“Helping the world solve some of its greatest challenges has been one of the most exciting, and satisfying, moments of my career,” said EVE Online creative director Bergur Finnbogason. “EVE Online players have made immeasurable contributions to the scientific community through Project Discovery and we’re setting them up to take things a step further with Phase Four. We’ve proven games can be used for good and the EVE Online community should be proud of all the incredible work they’ve helped some of the world’s leading scientists accomplish.”

To that end, EVE Online’s Project Discovery is set to expand its focus in the fourth phase to further research, including that of cancer. Meanwhile, players can still take part in contributing to ongoing COVID-19 research in Project Discovery by way of the project’s website. The Play Science app is still in development and is expected to come in 2024, but in the meantime, Project Discovery’s latest dataset will be made publicly available, allowing researchers worldwide to build upon the project’s existing data and develop their own algorithms in science and research of major challenges facing the real world right now.

As we await further details about the rollout of EVE Online’s Project Discovery Phase Four and the Play Science app, stay tuned for more updates. Be sure to check out the rest of our coverage from EVE Fanfest right here at Shacknews as well.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.