CCP's Conceived DUST 514 In Order To Create A More Accessible Entry In The Eve Universe.

But speaking in a candid interview on the PlayStation Blog, executive producer Brandon Laurino has promised the title will change the console shooter genre forever.

DUST 514 hooks into CCP's most recognisable project, Eve Online, giving players the opportunity to fight in wars that are occurring on planets within the PC title's macrocosm. Laurino said that the decision to make DUST 514 a shooter had something to do with accessibility.

"EVE Online is an incredibly deep MMO and, for better or worse, that comes with a typical perception that it is complicated," he revealed. "Part of the thinking behind DUST 514 is to address those preconceptions; we accept that there is a barrier to entry with something as deep as EVE Online and we wanted to make it more accessible, providing another portal and dimension into the EVE universe. What’s more accessible to a gamer in this day and age than a shooter?"

But why bring the game to the PlayStation 3 — exclusively no less?

"Obviously, we were attracted to the power and the feature set of PlayStation 3, but it really came down to Sony’s willingness to work with us in bringing an MMO to the platform," Laurino continued. "There have been attempts to bring MMO games to consoles in the past but we believe we’re now in a position to do it properly, using existing features on PS3 and the PlayStation Network, and collaboratively developing new features to support our vision."

While DUST 514 will be technically free-to-play, it will be supported via micro-transactions, with "thousands" of in-game items available from the PlayStation Store at launch.

"Right off the bat, we have literally thousands of in-game items built into the system; likewise, in terms of scale, you're looking at a conflict taking place across thousands of planets, so we're not just talking a dozen maps - we're talking an entire universe of planets and areas of engagement within them," he said.

"That's the difference in scale we're looking at here, and taking our experience with Eve Online and also, some inspiration found in the best microtransaction based MMOs, social and mobile games, and we've set up our workflow so that we can iterate and add new content very quickly.

"In terms of scale, depth and volume of content, Dust 514 will easily be the biggest multiplayer FPS on the market - also by virtue of being an MMOFPS, not just an FPS."

CCP plans to open Private Trials — or betas — for DUST 514 so that its servers aren't overloaded overnight. Amazingly, these will be built into the fiction.

"With our Private Trials - we're not calling it a Beta, but Private Trials in both the real world and the EVE fiction - we're not taking the usual 'on/off' method of rolling out a build and then taking it back and tweaking it, then rolling it out again; when we roll out with those first few users we are introducing mercenary technology to Eve, our 'game as a service begins', and the story will continue from there as that technology develops, further empowering the Dust 514 mercenaries from test subjects in war games to ultimately allowing them to take hold of their own future," Laurino noted.

It does sound ridiculously ambitious, and it's going to take a monumental communication effort from CCP and Sony's side to explain the game's concepts to mainstream gamers. You can read Brandon Laurino's full interview with the PlayStation Blog through here.