We visited CCP live in Iceland for you and checked out Project Nova (PC), a new MMO shooter in the EVE Online universe. In an interview with Game Director Snorri Árnason, we learned why Project Nova could be the next big shooter.
With Project Nova, CCP is ending an old path. What Dust 514 started back then could become a greater success with Project Nova. Project Nova was already introduced at the Fanfest in 2016. Now, there are first insights.
Beta, Loot Boxes, Free to Play – everything still open
Mein-MMO: So, straightforward: I think I read in the briefing that the game is free? Or is supposed to be free? How will monetization look like?
Snorri: We have not discussed monetization yet.
Mein-MMO: So, you don’t know anything about loot boxes or skins that might come or not?
Snorri: I just want to say, regardless of commercialization, we have noticed what happens today in the universe, in the “ecosystem of gaming,” if you will, and there are things that must be avoided and things that should not be done, and that is very clear to us.
Mein-MMO: What about a beta test? Will you release the game to players before it is published and let them test it?
Snorri: We definitely want to test, make sure our infrastructure works, so global networking, server farms, and so on. There will definitely be a lot of testing before we go live. Under what umbrella of a named expansion, or however you want to call it, that will happen and when the start date will be is not specified yet.
A game for solo players and friends
Mein-MMO: Will there be a group size required or recommended to play regarding the players? How many players could play in the different modes?
Snorri: As a solo player, you can simply queue for Co-op PvE or 16v16 PvP. You will be matched as a solo player just like usual. Therefore, you only have 3 other players with you, just like in PUBG or another game, so you will only be assigned to a group.
The same happens in PvP, so you will be assigned to a group with 3 randoms if you haven’t brought friends with you. We will support squads from day one as well as in the team voice-over IP. If you want to bring your 3 friends, you can form a squad and join as a squad in PvE or PvP.
Mein-MMO: So there won’t be much difference in experience between single player and multiplayer, or single player and group?
Snorri: No. Just that you are playing with your friends.
Xbox and PlayStation? Possible, but not a priority
Mein-MMO: Will you implement a LAN option?
Snorri: No. We are a small team, and we are trying to focus our efforts where it is most important. So we are not doing that at the moment and we are also not bringing private servers at the beginning.
That is something Dust requested and something we, as a progress-oriented MMO game, do not want. There is no reason to do it. We are not thinking about modifying or converting the game.
Mein-MMO: Will there be console ports?
Snorri: Never say never, but we are currently committed to the PC platform for the foreseeable future. If we have a rapid success and someone says, “We really want to port it somewhere”, I will listen to that.
But at the moment we are just on PC and we are happy to be back on PC next to EVE, where our operational knowledge is. 15 years of experience with EVE Online will be a tremendous support for the game.
Mein-MMO: What about VR?
Snorri: VR and FPS do not mesh well, due to vertical and so on. I have a VR enthusiast on the team who does crazy things, but no, there is no VR in this game.
Choose your hero and equip them
Mein-MMO: You mentioned progress in the game. How will that be? I believe I saw a career option?
Snorri: Yes, at the beginning this game will not launch with all the features I can mention, so the foundation is a really solid game with PvE and PvP and as I said, a hero-based progression, an unlocking process that goes approximately like this: You choose your hero that you want to play, and then you continue. Do you play EVE?
Mein-MMO: Uh, no.
Snorri: EVE basically has a passive skill training. You choose a skill you want to play or acquire, and over time you unlock it and now your ship is better or you can customize something. We want to do more in terms of FPS progression, where if you play a suit, you gain EXP on that suit.
This is basically it: You can unlock ranks, it is more like a reputation system. Multiple options for various classes, different dropsuits. And when you find one you like, you play that.
Then, opportunities for upgrades and customizations open up to you. It’s like a fleet of cars: You can unlock them and drive them as they are. But then you start changing tires or getting a new paint job because you like that car.
We allow you to test all directions and then you can decide: Okay, this is the kind of playstyle I like. And the way to unlock this is to do reputation contracts and missions, daily missions that give you influence, which gives you reputation, and then you can unlock things at the beginning.
Over time, there will be many ways to unlock things in different ways, such as crafting or so on, but we are not ready to talk about that. But that is definitely on the long-term roadmap.
Mein-MMO: You mentioned customization. Will there be female options?
Snorri: That is a very interesting question. When we made Dust, we decided to create female and male characters. In the storyline, in the narrative of the game, you play as a crafted clone of the best of the best biotechnologically manufactured being.
In this game, you are neither male nor female, you are not even bred for battle; you are cloned for battle, which means you have no reproductive organs. You have nothing that is unnecessary for combat because, at the end of the battle, you could simply be melted down to nothing.
So they are all basically made for combat, which means: nothing unnecessary.
I don’t think they would have hair, or that they would probably have translucent skin. We haven’t gone into detail, but our concept artist is very interested to see what this monster could look like, but they are not humans.
Mein-MMO: Speaking of which, why are the heads critical hit zones?
Snorri: That’s a good question. Sometimes you don’t want to get rid of the FPS habit. But ultimately, I would say that biotechnology has come a long way, and I would say that millions of years of evolution take a different path, and nature has found its way to the optimal creature. And this creature has a head. And a brain.
Project Nova is part of “the future of games”
Mein-MMO: You mentioned that the game will not launch with all features. Will Nova be a “Game as a Service”?
Snorri: Absolutely. It is meant to be just like EVE Online and I would say that Dust 514 had exactly the same, I worked on Dust 514 for a few years and we brought multiple expansions with a versatile team that did all kinds of things, and I believe it is the future of games.
I think Dust 514 was one of the pioneers when it comes to doing this in the FPS genre, and other games have continued where we left off. Warframe is a spiritual successor to EVE in this sense, with added expansions, Fortnite does the same, Rainbow Six: Siege does it very similarly, and that is absolutely the right way.
That’s why you should play this game because we are committed for the long term, and we want to add not only FPS variants but also other types of gameplay to the game itself, and then really everything. That’s why I also do not want to talk about a detailed 3-year roadmap because we want it to be influenced by our community.
We don’t want to say: Here are the things we will do. We want to say: Here are the things we have committed to because we planned it 12 months ago, but after that, really everything goes. We want to listen to the community to get feedback.
How EVE Online and Project Nova work together
Mein-MMO: Will Nova be in the same timeframe as EVE Online from the start?
Snorri: Yes.
Mein-MMO: So they run parallel?
Snorri: Yes. We are in the same time and the break between the games is basically the period during which the clones have been hiding on backwater planets, in jungles, as hermits, to avoid death squads.
Mein-MMO: There was the New Eden option in the game. Is it something different or just another view of the world?
Snorri: We really wanted to bring the player into the universe, and I think it’s very important to realize that this game is exactly the same universe as EVE. That star map you are talking about is basically the same 3D coordinates as all planets in EVE, and we think it’s very important to have that backdrop to show the player that this is the same universe.
And every setting and every activity happens in the star map, so you choose missions within the star map. In this sense, you fight in Molden Heath, which is a star system in EVE, or a region, and everything that could happen or is happening in the universe could be depicted in this star map.
So you could show non-gameplay information, for example. But you could also represent ownership in EVE on this star map, for instance, because you could depict the dynamic change and the influence of various factions within the EVE universe on this map, and this kind of fermatic connection creates something like: “Wow, this game is actually live, it changes every day”. That’s really interesting to follow.
Mein-MMO: In this context: You said that players in Nova might found corporations at some point. How will that work? Will they operate parallel to those in EVE Online or will they be something entirely different?
Snorri: For technical reasons, we want to keep them separate. Dust 514 did the same with corporations as if they belonged to the same registration. I think we would want to keep them separate, but any connection between the games would be at the alliance level.
So it would be a Dust corporation and an EVE corporation that would be merged in a federation, if you will. There is no real reason to favor one of the models. We prefer it to be simple.
Removing unnecessary dependencies in large games like this is better. We do not want EVE to crash because we have done something, or EVE does not want us to crash because they have done something, so it is better to keep them as separate as possible.
Balance in features is important
Mein-MMO: Do you plan to add more game modes than those you have already announced?
Snorri: We will continue to work on game modes. I don’t want to promise that we will be adding new game modes all the time. We want to improve them or develop completely new game modes over time, but I don’t think more game modes necessarily mean a better game.
You deceive the player base, and I think it’s bad to have a game mode that only a few people like because they will ultimately have a bad user experience. I shouldn’t name names, but a fairly new game I’m playing has no players queuing up for it, even though it’s a very popular game. No one is queuing for my game mode.
It’s hard to understand why I’m not coming to a matchmade or why I’m waiting very long. So I think it’s better to take some out and instead set up a new game mode and get everyone to play the same thing. However, we will see over time, but it’s important to have at least one very solid game mode rather than a copy of Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, and so on. Five is not better than one.
Mein-MMO: Will EVE Online players have advantages in Nova or vice versa, like nice perks to allow them to showcase their own character in some way?
Snorri: So for ex-Dust players, we give them a special dropsuit and so on, but these are mainly mementos in that sense, at least at the start. I think it’s cool to allow EVE players to have a similar thing, but nothing is planned at the moment.
If EVE players are excited about the game, we can definitely do something to make it clear that they are EVE players in the game, like through a mark, like a badge or something that says: “I am a proud EVE player” in the forums or something. But in the game, I don’t see that. An advantage would be unfair to everyone else. So no gameplay, just flair.
The game we have been waiting for?
What about “hop-on and hop-off”? Is it possible to play just a few rounds a day or week and then take a week off and come back later?
Snorri: That’s the good thing about this game. We have anticipated some of these things before and we have done some research, so we have checked it out. We know that many FPS players would like that, and also many Dust players and perhaps sci-fi enthusiasts.
There are not many sci-fi games, so dark sci-fi. There are cheerful sci-fi, but not in the alien way of the genre, the dark, cold, and mysterious. We think FPS players will probably cling to that.
We specifically asked EVE players; we conducted a survey and asked: “Is this an interesting game for you?”, “Do you even play FPS games?” and so on. The fact is that EVE players wait a long time. They jump, they trade, they wait for corp mates to show up for a fleet fight, and many of them said: “We alt-tab to play other games at the same time”.
PvE and PvP are meant to be a controllable experience. If you have 15 minutes, you theoretically know that you can finish a PvE map if you do it right and are not trying a harder difficulty for the first time. It’s something you can jump into, do a few games, and it lasts half an hour.
It should absolutely be controllable. We also thought that people want to distinguish when they want to commit more to a game and when not. If you want to do a difficult raid in World of Warcraft, for instance, you plan it for Friday at 9 PM and you plan to stay up all night if necessary. But on Tuesday, you might just want to do something alone that you know will take 25 minutes.
That’s the kind of gameplay opportunity we want to offer. Regarding what you said, the game you want, that is my dream. My personal dream is to have a game that I can always just come back to.
I can log in and play it, it won’t be gone, there are no sequels, it’s just there, just like EVE. EVE is that kind of foundation. EVE players can always come back, play their thing, and I think that this trust is something I would love to bring to the FPS world. This game will not disappear if you stick around.
Mein-MMO: So is it like the next Counter-Strike?
Snorri: Phew. Yes, you could say it’s like Counter-Strike and CS:GO, this game is just so popular, you know it so well, you can just keep coming back. I am not a fan of sequels in games at all.
Learn more about Project Nova: This is the MMO Shooter from EVE Online.
