What does this mean for Dust 514’s future?
The exciting news out of the first keynote presentation on Friday atEVEFanfest 2014 has to do with first-person shooters. Maybe surprisingly, that doesn’t meanDust 514. Rather, CCP’s working on an entirely new game at this point, for a platform that might make more sense given itsEVEuniverse install base.
This new experience is currently calledProject Legion, and it’s being developed for PC. Details are a bit scant right now, as it’s only in the prototype phase. However, CCP has a prettydecent track recordof taking prototypes and turning them into strong endeavors.
It’s not all that surprising to hear that CCP is moving this direction with a second shot at a first-person shooter. Jean-Charles Gaudechon, the executive producer onDust 514who’s been at CCP for seven months, was integral to the decision. He noted that this made the most sense for the team to be able to push the vision that they had forDust.
According to Gaudechon,Project Legionis being build around three pillars (videogame buzzwords!) of gameplay. The first, and probably most important for an FPS, is that the developers want to make a game that is a deep and balanced competitive shooter. Second, sticking true to the core tenets of theEVE Onlineuniverse, they’re striving to create a true sandbox in New Eden for players — one in which they’re less crafting a set experience, but instead acting as custodians of a game that allows experiences to happen. Lastly, again remaining in sync withEVE Online, they want a player-driven economy.
Truth be told, there’s really not all that information aboutProject Legionavailable yet. That’s most likely because CCP hasn’t necessarily nailed down the specifics yet. It’s just a prototype, after all. Gaudechon off-handedly mentioned that CCP wants this to be a “re-imagining of what a first-person experience inEVEis,” and it’s easy to pick up on the fact that the re-imagining is still far from complete.
As such, there are plenty of questions still in the mix. WillProject Legionadopt the same free-to-play model ofDust 514? Are they going to attempt to integrate the gameplay into the greaterEVE Onlineuniverse? And, maybe most tantalizingly, what doesProject Legion‘s existence mean forDust 514?
There’s no denying thatDust 514hasn’t exactly panned out to be all that it was hyped to be. WillProject Legion‘s release be the coup de grâce for the PlayStation 3 title? Unsurprisingly, Gaudechon denies this, remarking the CCP is seeing a solid user base forDust, largely attributable to the dedicatedEVEcommunity. When asked if the two games will be different enough that people would be inclined to play both, he responded in the affirmative.
Despite those replies, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this very well be the beginning of the end of the road forDust 514. It seems that CCP is looking atDustas a learning experience, and taking that information to a new game on a platform where its players are. Regardless of what the future holds forDust 514,Project Legionproves that CCP isn’t giving up on the first-person shooter genre anytime soon.
