Dust 514 is the upcoming Free-To-Play FPSMMO by CCP, the development studio famed for EVE, the space MMO. Aside from pursuing an innovative cross-MMO interaction, CCP claims that Dust 514 is a massive, massive endeavor.
"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."
Sounds insane, right? I'm still taken aback by the idea of being contracted by players on the PC, and being able to affect the politics of an entirely different game–never mind the purported scope of the game. All of this, on the PS3. Really?
Honestly, these are such grand ambitions I'll remain cautious of the game until I can see that it can deliver on its alleged grandeur.