Dual Universe is another ambitious space MMO, going alongside Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. Dual Universe goes further than the other two games with wanting players to colonize planets, build their settlements, create trade and territorial empires, and ultimately wage galactic war across one single persistent universe for everyone. The largest difference from Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, just about everything is player created. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous have in-game entities that design the buildings and ships such as, Aegis and DeLacey, who are embedded in the game’s mythos. Players in Dual Universe can purchase ship designs from other players or make their own from scratch.
Dual Universe developer Novaquark released a new trailer that will be going along a new Alpha stage. The trailer shows off a space battle of an orbital station, a gameplay path that has been relatively untouched. The trailer focuses on a fleet that is based around a carrier, and a smaller force of snub fighters and picket frigates. Since all of the ships are player created the design philosophies and liveries are vastly different from each other.
The combat is conducted in real-time, in a first-person view from the cockpit, and larger ships will require a larger crew to man the weapons and various subsystems alongside having multiple pilots. Dual Universe is still very early in its development life, and does not have its servers online twenty-four seven and instead is only playable in limited windows. Despite the limitations, Dual Universe has grown a community, with the largest player faction being over a thousand strong.
Dual Universe does offer game pledges ranging from $60 to $180 which offers access to the alpha, a free beta token to gift, and some in-game goods. While it is expensive, Novaqaurk says that Dual Universe is not sustainable with a singular flat fee and will have a monthly subscription as well. Dual Universe isn’t currently offering non-cosmetic items so far, which Star Citizen has to do, and offer ships ranging from $15 to over a thousand and at one point sold a ship package for $27,000.
Dual Universe is planned to release in eighteen months, to two years from now, although it lags far behind Star Citizen which began nearly a decade ago and is as large in its scope.