How Dust 514’s devs plan to get players past day one

In the free-to-play first-person shooter’s Uprising 1.5 release, CCP will introduce players to the game with an “objective-driven approach.” By assuming players’ basic knowledge, CCP will lead them toward goals, rather than hold their hands.

“With the assumption that our players are mostly familiar with the genre, we can be more confident that they’ll be able to complete the objectives,” CCP Greyscale wrote. “Dust is also a fairly dense and free-form game, so people who are likely to stick with it in the long term are assumed to be more likely to find an objective-driven approach a good fit. And objective-driven tutorials are a safer long-term investment in a continually changing game like Dust, since they’re much less sensitive to changes in UI, mechanics, etc.”

With that in mind, the 1.5 update’s new player introduction, which is due in early October, will teach three things: joining battles, creating new gear and weapon “fittings” and purchasing and training with a skill.

Dust 514’s 1.4 update, the latest in a series of “rapid-fire updates” for the FPS, was released last month and focused on performance enhancements and delivering greater accessibility, creative director Atli May told Polygon at Gamescom.