The study of inner models was initiated by Gödel’s analysis of the constructible universe $L$. Later, it became necessary to study canonical inner models with large cardinals, e.g. measurable cardinals, strong cardinals or Woodin cardinals, which were introduced by Jensen, Mitchell, Steel, and others. Around the same time, the study of infinite two-player games was driven forward by Martin’s proof of analytic determinacy from a measurable cardinal, Borel determinacy from ZFC, and Martin and Steel’s proof of levels of projective determinacy from Woodin cardinals with a measurable cardinal on top. First Woodin and later Neeman improved the result in the projective hierarchy by showing that in fact the existence of a countable iterable model, a mouse, with Woodin cardinals and a top measure suffices to prove determinacy in the projective hierarchy.

This opened up the possibility for an optimal result stating the equivalence between local determinacy hypotheses and the existence of mice in the projective hierarchy, just like the equivalence of analytic determinacy and the existence of $x^\sharp$ for every real $x$ which was shown by Martin and Harrington in the 70’s. The existence of mice with Woodin cardinals and a top measure from levels of projective determinacy was shown by Woodin in the 90’s. Together with his earlier and Neeman’s results this estabilishes a tight connection between descriptive set theory in the projective hierarchy and inner model theory.

In this talk, we will outline some of the main results connecting determinacy hypotheses with the existence of mice with large cardinals and discuss a number of more recent results in this area.