Dust 514 staying in closed beta until 2013

With the considerable backing of EVE Online on its side, CCP can afford to take its time with Dust 514. The PlayStation 3 tie-in game that aims to outlive its platform entered closed beta this year, and will stay in closed beta until sometime early next year, according to the developer.

"We'll be in closed beta through the end of 2012, but it won't take much longer," CCP's David Reid told Eurogamer. "With a bet this big you want to get things right." He notes that some parts of the game have some "rough edges," because it's not simply a launch demo.

Right now, he says, the focus is to make the game more accessible for new players, since some have found it a bit hard to penetrate. "The big challenge is the first ten minutes," he said. "We want to make it as accessible as Call of Duty and Battlefield. It's about getting people interested, then getting them down that rabbit hole into the EVE universe. Pretty soon they'll be at [annual convention] Fanfest getting a tattoo."

Making adjustments like that are longer-term projects than the trend of simply using a beta for stress-testing servers, so it makes sense that the test would go well into next year. After that, it may have to refocus itself on future consoles as Sony prepares whatever is to come next.