Dual Universe's ambitions are vast: it's a space MMO with PvP combat, freeform voxel tech building tools, and an end game in which you have to master a built-in scripting language to reprogram the behaviour of your ship. After Evan saw it up close he described it as "one part EVE, one part Minecraft", which means the latest hire from developer Novaquark is probably a good fit. It's recruited Hrafnkell Oskarsson, one of EVE Online's original designers.
The move, announced on French site AFJV, can only be a good thing for the project. It's easy to doubt whether huge, open games like this will ever see the light of day, but Evan came away from his demo with his skepticism largely allayed, and hiring a big name like Oskarsson is another signal of how serious the studio is.
Oskarsson first joined EVE Online developer CCP in 1999, and left the studio in 2015, at which point he was a senior game designer on EVE. He joins Novaquark as an executive producer.
If you want to find out more about Dual Universe, then Evan's preview is a good place to start. Players will have to build their own stargates before they can travel between different systems, and it may not even have quests—just the jobs that players give each other to keep its in-game economy ticking over.
Thanks, PCGamesN.
