EVE Fanfest 2014: EVE Valkyrie demos gameplay, features Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff

Moments ago at EVE Fanfest 2014 in Reykjavik, Iceland, developer CCP Games revealed some exciting developments for its upcoming virtual reality dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie. Among the announcements was the revelation that actress Katee Sackhoff (of Battlestar Galactica fame) will be starring as the voice of Valkyrie faction leader Ran. The Valkyrie faction is a breakaway sect of EVE Online's Guristas pirates that has become a mercenary outfit, using cloning and genetic enhancements to get an edge on the other pirate factions of New Eden. Sackhoff's character will be handing out missions to players in the final game and barking orders in your ear throughout each mission.

Read on for our the highlights of the Valkyrie demo and Sackhoff's video missive to players.

Gameplay reveals

In addition to giving attendees some hands-on time with the latest build of Valkyrie, CCP revealed further details on the gameplay. Each mission starts with your fighter squad being launched out of a supercarrier's launch tube into a battlefield, with direct-fire machine guns and auto-targeting missiles at your disposal. Ships can also have electronic countermeasures to jam missiles and holographic projectors to confuse the human opponents. The battlefield itself will feature different tactical environments, such as dust clouds, asteroid fields, and shipwrecks.

Players will be able to select from a variety of different ship hulls to fulfill different roles, with small fighters and heavily armoured assault roles. Ships can be customised further with different loadouts, and visually customised with decals applied to the hull. It'll be possible to switch ships and loadouts in the middle of the match between deaths to react to the tactical situation on the battlefield. The game will also feature a skill system to allow players to specialise in one particular role.

Valkyrie originally started as an Oculus Rift technology demo produced in a few developers' spare time using assets from EVE Online but has now grown to become a major part of CCP's plans and garner a sizeable fanbase. A year on from its humble beginnings, Valkyrie is now finally starting to take shape as a game in its own right. Valkyrie will be coming to PC using the Oculus Rift gaming headset and was recently announced for the PlayStation 4 using Sony's new VR headset Project Morpheus. The game is now being developed in CCP's Newcastle office using Unreal Engine 4.

Whether you're a die-hard fan of internet spaceships or just a gawker on the sidelines, EVE Fanfest is the EVE Online event of the year (and the key source of new EVE Valkyrie scoops!). Follow Massively's Brendan Drain as he reports back on this year's Fanfest starpower, scheming, and spoilers from exotic Reykjavik, Iceland.