At its annual EVE Fanfest community event over the weekend, Icelandic studio CCP revealed Project Legion, a free-to-play MMO shooter for the PC, set in the Eve Online universe, and being built using assets from the PlayStation 3 exclusive Dust 514.

A developer blog post over at Dust514.com describes the ambitious Project Legion in detail, explaining why its being geared as new title, rather than a port of the PlayStation 3 game:

When I came to CCP several months ago, it was to fulfill a vision that was our goal since DUST 514 was first announced: Merge a deep sandbox experience with an FPS in New Eden, to create a massive living world more meaningful as real life. As the team and I worked on that vision, we came to understand the effort centered around four pillars. We had to build the right ecosystem incorporating a fun and balanced competitive shooter; player vs. environment allowing for emergent behaviors; a player-driven economy that is distinctly CCP; and deep immersion that brings it all together.

We realized we would never be able to do it by iteration, any more than one could overhaul the engines of a plane in flight, and to do this right it would need to become something new -- a distinct and separate experience from what we’ve previously offered on DUST 514. We also feel that, to do this right, we need to do it on the PC platform first.

To achieve this, we'll need much more focus on the user experience than ever before. As I mentioned during my keynote today, the starmap will play a larger role in the way you'll interact with that huge universe. I envision New Eden’s mercenaries scanning the universe for loot, battles, Guristas-sponsored tournaments and such, and then making meaningful choices from there.

Several European publications that were present at the event have some art and environment stills accompanying their coverage. Swing by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Eurogamer, and Polygon for more info.