How Dust 514's races influence weapon design

Dust 514 developer CCP Games discussed two new weapons being added to the PlayStation 3 first-person shooter in the upcoming 1.7 update today, and touched on the difficulties of creating unique weapons for the game's four races.

The Minmatar combat rifle is a gas-operated gun suitable for close- and medium-range combat. It's available with a three-round burst and an ACOG scope, while another version goes fully automatic with iron sights. Meanwhile, the Caldari rail rifle is a slow-firing gun that must be briefly charged prior to firing.

Developers from CCP explained in a blog post that one of the most challenging parts of designing weapons for four different races (the other two are Amarr and Gallente) is "interpreting established conventions for these racial weapons in a way that makes sense for FPS combat." Each race has different weapon preferences, so one race's weapons should feel similar to each other while remaining distinct from the guns of the other three races. The developers also went through a simplified version of their weapon design process; you can check it out in the blog post.

Version 1.7 of Dust 514 is set for release in December. For more on the game, check out our recent interview with its new producer.