EVE Online starts testing Aura Guidance, an AI-style helper for new players

CCP Games is rolling out an early prototype called Aura Guidance in EVE Online today, aimed at helping brand-new players get answers without immediately bouncing out to wikis or other external guides. It’s part of CCP’s long-running “EVE Evolved” initiative, and it’s being tested first through a controlled A/B test for new character creation.

In other words, if you’re a fresh account making your first pilot, you might get Aura Guidance or you might get the usual onboarding. CCP says it’s doing that so it can measure whether the tool actually helps rookies, then adjust or scrap parts of it based on how people use it.

Aura Guidance is basically an in-game chat assistant trained on existing player support chatter. CCP says it was built using “insights” from more than 5.8 million messages posted in the Rookie Help channel over a nine-month period. The initial focus is narrow: helping new pilots build basic understanding during their early hours in New Eden.

CCP also says the tool takes some in-game context into account, like where your ship is and what you’re flying. If it can’t find a confident answer, it’ll point you back to the human-run Rookie Help channel rather than guessing.

CCP stresses this isn’t meant to generate game content or replace player helpers, and that it’s meant to supplement Rookie Help, not take it over. More details are in the developer blog.

Alongside the new helper, CCP says it’s continuing its broader onboarding and presentation work. The first phase of this update batch, called True Colors, is already live with more personalization and navigation tweaks. Another visual pass, Sharper Skies, is slated to arrive next week.

While many gamers are critical of AI, this seems like a great implementation. Especially for a complex game like Eve Online that’s known for having a steep learning curve.