The development of Project Nova, the codename for CCP Games' Eve Online multiplayer first-person shooter spin-off title, has been in limbo for several years and now the death knell for the project has officially been rung.

CCP Grendel announced on Reddit that the development of the Eve Online multiplayer spin-off Project Nova, which was originally scheduled to enter a closed alpha test in November 2018, has instead been permanently shut down. The reasons given were that, after listening to player feedback given in focus groups and research sessions, it became clear to the developer that the game was not moving forward as desired and gameplay did not live up to the original vision for the project. The decision, Project Nova’s game director Snorri Árnason stated, was a creative and not a financial one.

RELATED: EVE Online Player Bids $40,000 for Ship

The company went on to assure fans that a spin-off title is not off the table, although Project Nova as it has been known will cease to exist. Instead, a different Eve Online multiplayer project will be handled by CCP London and will essentially replace Project Nova. The new title will expand the scope of what was originally intended for Project Nova and will offer a solid sci-fi multiplayer shooter experience with “stellar” visuals. The Iceland team in the meantime, which had been working on Project Nova, has already moved on to other Eve-related projects.

Details about the game that CCP London is working on will remain under wraps for the time being. CCP Grendel stated in its Reddit post that the company is going to refrain from announcing internal project codenames until the games have progressed enough for an official reveal. This will allow the company to keep down the hype and reduce the inevitable disappointment when project shuffling or shutdowns such as this occur. It also means that CCP will begin to show their work rather than simply tell players about it.

Eve Online’s Project Nova was first announced in April 2016 as the spiritual successor to 2013’s DUST 514, CCP Games' first attempt to create a multiplayer first-person shooter based in the world of Eve Online. That game featured cross-compatibility with Eve and allowed players in Dust 514 to call in air strikes from their Eve Online spaceships, an exciting concept that was unfortunately not given the best of beginnings. The game released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 right near the end of that console’s lifecycle, and Dust 514’s servers shut down in May 2016. Project Nova was to pick up where Dust 514 had left off, bringing gamers a multiplayer shooter that maintained the groundbreaking integration with Eve Online.

Eve Online was released in 2003 and is available on Mac and PC.

More: Reddit User Shows Off Massive Nintendo 64 Collection

Source: Reddit