Of all the negatives commonly associated with giant-sized gaming corporations, it's their intellectual property monopolies that cut the most deep. Whether it's Microsoft manhandling Rare, Electronic Arts buying and disassembling Westwood Studios or Activision retaining the rights to Crash Bandicoot, the history of video gaming is full of misused, or worse yet, unused licence libraries. Fortunately there's one, unusual upside to this whole situation: when a company chooses to mix and match genres, characters and locales, it can. Imagine a top-selling shooter, merged with a triple-A racing title, backed by a world class RTS, or any other genre for that matter. CCP studios certainly can, and they're developing the EVE Online experience to match this multi-faceted vision.

Starting with Dust 514, an underwhelming free-to-play FPS title released for the PS3 earlier this year, EVE's intergalactic empire took its first formative steps towards mega-property status. Now it's the turn of the space-shooter genre, with the news that Oculus Rift's exciting tech-demo turned full-on game EVE Valkyrie will also be merging with the wider EVE Online universe, but not at first.

Speaking to Digital Spy, CCP's chief managing officer David Reid discussed the title's ever-expanding scope, as well as the need to start small.

"It's going to be a lot more initially about nailing the moment-to-moment experience and making something awesome, and then building a game around it. […]From [there] we will absolutely connect EVE Valkyrie with the rest of the EVE universe. It's just what we do."

Sadly, Reid doesn't see this development occurring any time soon. Though Valkyrie is penned in for a prospective 2014 release, its merger with the rest of the EVE universe will take a lot longer, and likely require one-or-two technological bumps along the way.

"If you think about the big grand visions of 5, 10 years from now, why shouldn't you […] be able to feel like your EVE ship is flying through space and your Valkyrie pilots come shooting out of the sides like the Vipers in Battlestar Galactica?

The developer also briefly discussed Valkyrie's gameplay, likening the variety of modes on offer to that of a typical First-Person Shooter, albeit with a space-aged twist. Given the current revival of the space-sim genre, via Star Wars: The Old Republic's Galactic Starfighter expansion and crowdfunding behemoth Star Citizen, 5 to 10 years may already be too late to make an impact in this rapidly expanding market.

Are inter-linked "mega-properties" the future of video gaming? Which fictional universes are best suited to this kind of split? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to check in with all of the latest EVE Online news, right here on Game Rant.

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EVE Valkyrie is scheduled to debut at some point in 2014. The game will be playable via the Oculus Rift headset, though no compatible systems have yet been announced for the title.

EVE Online and DUST 514 are available now, for PC, and PlayStation 3 platforms respectively.

Follow Sam on Twitter @GamingGoo.

Source: Digital Spy