With Daybreak currently in the throes of fresh layoffs and a “company realignment” and PlanetSide Arena failing to really set the world on fire to the point that the game has had to adjust game modes to account for low populations, it’s easy to assume that things are bleak for PlanetSide overall. It’s with this in mind that executive producer Andy Sites offered a letter to encourage fans about the near and distant future of the series and re-establish his team’s commitment to the franchise.
The letter first touches on PlanetSide Arena and its upcoming goals including the addition of a non-battle royale mode that incorporates familiar gameplay beats like capture points, a broader range of vehicles, and the ability to drop in and drop out of a match, in a mode-specific map designed for generally shorter game sessions. The letter also goes on to state that early access is being used the way it was always intended: as a way to gather feedback, implement critical updates, then launch and promote the game. To that end, Sites has asked that players continue to participate and submit feedback.
The letter then moved on to a vision of what PlanetSide 3 is meant to look like, which would take the idea of factional warfare on a large-scale map and expand it to an entire interstellar conflict. “We envision expanding from the current battlefields of Auraxis, to full-fledged galactic war with empires exploring, colonizing and conquering one another within an expansive galaxy,” writes Sites. He further envisions PlanetSide Arena as a “stepping stone” between the third and fourth game as the studio uses it to test out new features and gameplay styles.
Why not simply add these features to PlanetSide 2 instead of making a whole new game? Simply put, doing so would be “catastrophically disruptive” to what makes the game work, according to Sites. “We don’t want to upset that balance, as it would be unfair to our current PS2 community,” states the letter.
