DUST 514

This page provides information on the history of DUST University. DUST 514, a game for Playstation 3, was shut down by CCP Games on May 30, 2016.

DUST 514 was a first-person shooter (FPS) game partially integrated with EVE Online and also made by CCP Games. Like EVE DUST was set in New Eden, but rather than following capsuleers in space, it put players into the boots of clone soldiers fighting on planets.

DUST and EVE had a shared pool of usernames and permitted some interactions between soldiers on the ground (playing DUST) and capsuleers in space (playing EVE), including orbital bombardments. Teams of DUST players could take on mercenary contracts from EVE players to fight battles with (limited) implications within EVE. CCP hoped to increase the interactivity between the two games over time, forming them into one community.

DUST 514 was announced on August 18, 2009, and was released on Playstation 3 on May 14, 2013. The game was free-to-play with microtransactions; it had skill training and fitting mechanics reminiscent of EVE's, though players were fitting out individual soldiers' equipment rather than spaceships. Several game modes were available, modeled on common FPS formats.

On release, reviewers praised the ambition of CCP's attempt to integrate two different games but criticised graphics and gameplay that they judged uninspiring. The game ran for three years but was shut down in May 2016.

In 2018, Dust 514 veterans were given the opportunity to claim a single character name by 28 October 2018, as all unclaimed characters and accounts were reset and their unique names will be made available to other players in a future FPS project. Any potential DUST 514 Veteran Rewards will only be made available to accounts that have a claimed character and unclaimed names will be wiped with no chance of Veteran Rewards.

For more details see Wikipedia's entry for DUST 514.