EVE Online Companion FPS DUST 514 Gets a Release Date

DUST 514, the PS3 companion game to EVE Online, finally has a release date. While the game has been in open beta since January 22 this year, it'll officially launch on May 14.

For those who don't know, DUST 514 is a new kind of game, the first free-to-play first person shooter to release on a home console; while other games for these consoles have started to include microtransactions, this is the first that does so without also charging a base price. But what makes it special isn't that you can play the game without handing over any money. What makes DUST 514 unique is that the game is linked to the complex and persistent world of EVE Online, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for PC that currently has over 500,000 subscribers.

In DUST 514, players take part in combat situations on the surfaces of the planets from EVE Online. The way each battle plays out can affect events in the EVE Online universe, as DUST 514 mercenaries pick their sides in wars between player corporations. The EVE Online players can help the mercenaries on the ground, too, using their spaceships to bombard the enemy, though apparently that enemy can also use certain weapons to fight back and attack the ships above.

Given the success of EVE Online and the in-game stories that have developed over the decade for which it's existed, it'll be interesting to see how this connection with DUST 514 changes things. We'll start to find out when the game launches on May 14. Given that it's free, will you give it a try?