Ubisoft's Project Dust: A "Spiritual Successor" to Populous

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Ubisoft's Project Dust: A "Spiritual Successor" to Populous

Post by trog @ 09:40am 16/06/10 | 25 Comments

Ubisoft have snuck out some details of a new game currently in development with the working title of Project Dust. For those who have fond memories of Bullfrog's awesome God-game Populous, take note:

Project Dust is the spiritual heir to Populous. The game is set in an extreme version of Planet Earth where nature unleashes her power in a much more violent way than what we are used to. Tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, volcanic eruptions are what the days are made of for the people of Dust. In this kind of God game, users will play with powers to manipulate the world around them. Ground, water, lava, fire, plants and trees -model the world like a child playing sand castles on the beach. With such powers, players will help their people resist, expand and migrate so they can accomplish their quest to find a safe place.

A pretty cool trailer has been released which sets the scene of the game and what little has been announced is also available on our game page.

e3 2010 project dust populous

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trog
Posted 09:41am 16/6/10

want want want want want want

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Sc00bs
Posted 09:42am 16/6/10

sweet, looks like black and white sort of

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NoLogic
Posted 09:43am 16/6/10

Noice - one to keep an eye on.

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Khel
Posted 09:49am 16/6/10

Hrmmm, doesn't seem to have much to do with Populous, I see no theme of "gods playing games with the lives of men", seems like a crafty name-drop to try and get more publicity. Nice looking trailer though.

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trog
Posted 09:50am 16/6/10

Hrmmm, doesn't seem to have much to do with Populous, I see no theme of "gods playing games with the lives of men", seems like a crafty name-drop to try and get more publicity. Nice looking trailer though.

rly? I thought it was - it sounds like there's one 'person' who has the magical skillz that were talked about in the trailer. There's a scene where you can see some sort of in-game GUI element (like a hand or something) that is presumably being used to raise/lower terrain and/or work on the minions.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 09:50am 16/6/10

Oh.my.god.

I friggin loved Populous 3 and Black & White (which was made by lionhead, which afaik was largely made of bullfrog developers, the guys who made populous). Keen for this.

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ctd
Posted 09:54am 16/6/10

Black and White. Cool idea, annoying implementation.

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ravn0s
Posted 09:58am 16/6/10

looks kind of meh to me

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d^
Posted 01:20pm 16/6/10

great stuff.

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greazy
Posted 01:35pm 16/6/10

want want want want want want

quoted for truth WANT WANT WANT.

populus was awesome.

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neffo
Posted 01:46pm 16/6/10

Populous was rad, Black and White was garbage.

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Bertis
Posted 02:55pm 16/6/10

Anyone notice it's not for PC? Ubisoft continue to disappoint.

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DM
Posted 02:59pm 16/6/10

^ even if it was, it'd have the gay DRM stuff on it. Pass. Although it looks good I won't support ubisoft.

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ravn0s
Posted 03:00pm 16/6/10

they make the majority of their money from console games because no one wants to buy their drm infested pc games.

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cyph
Posted 03:00pm 16/6/10

Black and White was garbage.

But training your creature to throw poop at villagers... HILARIOUS!

Or better yet, throw villagers at cliffs.

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trog
Posted 03:00pm 16/6/10

Anyone notice it's not for PC? Ubisoft continue to disappoint.

haha NO I DIDN'T

Where's the unwant button on this thing

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 03:45pm 16/6/10

When I looked it up before there was mention of a downloadable PC edition, which at first I thought there wasn't and had the same reaction as above.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 03:50pm 16/6/10

Q: On which platforms will your project be available and when?

A: It�ll be available on Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade & downloadable for PC on Spring 2011

4 hours ago: http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/277/project-dust-qa

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Khel
Posted 03:53pm 16/6/10

rly? I thought it was - it sounds like there's one 'person' who has the magical skillz that were talked about in the trailer. There's a scene where you can see some sort of in-game GUI element (like a hand or something) that is presumably being used to raise/lower terrain and/or work on the minions.

Ah yeah, I saw that bit in the trailer, but it didn't click in my head. I thought the voice narrating it was like one of the villagers/minions, not the omnipotent god type guy, but I guess that makes more sense.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 04:25pm 20/8/10

Think this is new. Pretty amazing, I've been working on similar concepts and know just how damn hard it is to do these things in a realtime way.

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trog
Posted 04:28pm 20/8/10

man that looks awesome. The water/lava looks fantastic.

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Thundercracker
Posted 05:37pm 20/8/10

Amazing as a tech demo. Now lets see if they can make a good game out of it.

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ravn0s
Posted 05:50pm 20/8/10

so theyve renamed it from project dust to from dust?

no pc version? this game would be perfect and better on pc.

last edited by ravn0s at 17:50:08 20/Aug/10

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 06:08pm 20/8/10

Don't know why people keep thinking there's no pc version. There is:

http://gamingbolt.com/from-dust-tech-demo-is-phenomenal