CCP announces console-based Eve game

COLOGNE, Germany--While the title of Hilmar Veigar Petursson's GDC Europe session was "Winning the War," the real highlight was the unveiling of the company's first new game since Eve Online in 2003. The project is called Dust 514, and it will be a console-based massively multiplayer online game that will feed into the wider Eve Online universe.

According to Petursson, the game will be a first-person shooter/real-time strategy hybrid that will take place on the planets within Eve Online. "The primary gameplay features brutal ground combat that takes place on the surface of planets," said Petursson. "Dust 514 is the infantry, and an Eve Online player can contract a Dust team to go in and take control of a planet. The fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying," he joked, in reference to Paul Verhoeven's 1997 sci-fi film version of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

The game was unveiled with a trailer that showed the game in action, albeit through what appeared to be prerendered footage. A ship belonging to the Ishukone Corporation was revealed, before the camera headed inside to show someone playing from a first-person perspective. The character equipped a gun and ran through the ship, going outside onto the planet's surface and then aboard a small military aircraft. All around the character, jeeps and tanks fought it out on the ground while larger ships blasted each other in the air.

The game has been under development for three years at CCP Shanghai, with input from other CCP studios worldwide. We questioned Petursson about the platforms the game is being developed for, as well as subscription details, but he declined to comment at this time. But it was confirmed that the game was being developed for "current generation hardware."

Petursson did promise more details will be revealed at the company's Eve Fanfest 2009 event in Iceland in October, so stay tuned to GameSpot for more information.