• Posted June 9th, 2011 at 10:27 EDT by Eric Blattberg
• 3 Comments

Dust 514, an upcoming PlayStation 3 shooter from the folks at CCP (Crowd Control Production) Games, aims to blend the line between massively multiplayer online games and first-person shooters. It’s not an MMOFPS, per say, but rather a persistent online shooter that interacts with CCP’s existing Eve Online MMO universe — one that will continue to expand and evolve past its initial release date.

“Eve has had expansions every six months roughly,” said Torfi Frans Olafsson, creative director of Eve Online. “I think there’s like 13 that we’ve delivered that have radically improved and changed the game since 2003. That’s kind of how we roll.”

CCP will be pursuing a similar strategy with Dust 514, confirmed Frans Olafsson.

“Dust will have iterations and expansions probably every three months improving the game, because with a dynamic game like this where you empower the players this much — give them this much freedom — you actually have to react quickly to the way they’re playing the game,” he continued.
“We’re not just burning DVDs and Blu-ray discs, selling them and then running away. This is a commitment to our players; we react to them, and we improve the game based on how they [play] and their feedback.”

One question on a lot of gamers’ minds is precisely how Dust will interact with Eve. This will occur in a number of ways, but here’s one specific example: in Eve, players can build infrastructure on the surface of planets for industry, defense, and general sovereignty. Dust mercenaries can also build up infrastructure. These locales will be hot spots for conflict between the two universes.

“Mercenaries can roam in and attack the infrastructure and all the precious belongings of the Eve players on the surface of the planets,” explained Frans Olafsson. “[They can] capture them or totally destroy them with a scorched earth policy.”

A Dust 514 beta is scheduled to arrive on the PlayStation Network later this year, with an official release coming sometime in 2012.