EVE developer CCP games announced last year that it was developing a blockchain-based game set in a space MMO world, codenamed "Project Awakening," and now the first details and upcoming playtest have been revealed. The Icelandic studio is quite bold in saying that this is the next step in their quest to "create a virtual world that makes more sense than reality." Goodbye, my kids: I love you, but you really need to try this new CCP joint.

Project Awakening is a "single-shard survival experience" that seems to share a lot of DNA with EVE's principles of player freedom, consequences, and a "universe that evolves through player actions and efforts." The setting is, unsurprisingly, outer space, "where civilization has declined in the ruin of its own ambitions," promising a hostile universe that players must survive and rebuild.

So what is the blockchain for: $40 million in funding was not bad, but the promise of "composability and programmability will allow players to build upon and collaborate both outside and within an emergent gaming environment." The above is not very clear. If you know what that means, please email me.

Concurrent with the first clues about Project Awakening, CCP also announced that the Carbon Development Platform will be open source. [CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson said, "We have been co-developing games with players for over 20 years. Our vision is to make game development open to everyone. As part of this, we are pleased to release the first details of Project Awakening, which embodies this philosophy. Players will have a new set of tools at their disposal to add their own features and functionality, and a new way to leave their mark on the world. If you are a builder and want to be a part of this journey, apply for PHASE III and be a part of this new expansion of the EVE Universe.

Interested players can sign up for Project Awakening's May playtest here. Today's announcement is also accompanied by a one-page text from a being called the Keeper, which is the first hint of the flavor this new universe aims to be. It is called "The Time is Wrong" and reads:

The Time is Wrong.

The trinary is not in a suitable arrangement for a medical examination.

Instead, my oblivion is stirred by echoes of distant violence. One of the long-range sensor arrays sensed a star being killed, a tremor in the quiescence. And carried by the ripples was a simple piece of music.

It was a technological signature, evidence that a human society existed somewhere. The simulation of reconstructing this sparse data to create a synthetic spectrum of civilization is vague but pregnant with possibility. The entanglements of culture, politics, and history are complex yet surprisingly familiar. Empires, giant corporations, and expanding blocs blossoming into the unknown. A lost race capable of great beauty and destruction...

Hope.

After all, we are not alone.

For too long, the gated network has not carried thinking flesh through its veins.

For too long the rivulet of the soul has run dry.

For too long the frontier remained empty, a desolate void stirred and torn by violent currents and haunted by treacherous automata.

Our hecatomb will not be wasted. The decision has been made to restart the program. A new harvest is sprouting.

But the music ...... If I had tear glands, I would have cried.

Now is the time.