Hilmar Petursson, boss of EVE Online developer CCP, will be delivering the keynote address at the upcoming GDC Europe in August, during which he will unveil the studio’s newest project.
Petursson, who has been with the Reykjavik-based company since 2000, will be speaking about his company’s growth from a team of 30 people to more than 300 current employees in a presentation titled “CCP: Winning the War.” CCP’s growth has been closely tied to the success of its cutthroat spacefaring MMO EVE Online, which reached 300,000 subscribers in May.
Rather than continuing to tie their fortunes solely to the success of EVE, though, CCP plans to branch out – and Petursson will be using the opportunity to formally lift the veil off of their new project, reports Gamasutra. As for what the project is? Well, that’s anyone’s best guess.
So, in the absence of any information beyond “Hey, it exists and will be revealed at GDC Europe,” let’s wildly speculate. It might well be another MMO, as that seems to be CCP’s area of expertise. If so, the question would be if it would be a “single-shard” MMO, where all the players are in one massive world (a la EVE), or a more traditional “multi-shard” game with players sectioned off server by server.
If an MMO, I’d be inclined to guess the latter. I can’t really imagine any way to do a single-shard game without having a nigh-infinite amount of room… which would almost certainly require a sci-fi space setting, and CCP wouldn’t risk crowding itself out of the market like that. So if it’s an MMO, I’d expect a more traditional multi-shard game, though it’s hard to see the off-the-beaten-path-and-proud-of-it CCP making a fantasy swords n’ sorcery game like everyone else.
What I can see is CCP taking pride in its Icelandic heritage (as it has been known to do in the past). Come on, admit it: A Vikings Online game would be totally badass.
Either way, we’ll know when GDC Europe kicks off this August, in Leipzig, Germany.
