Ever since Daybreak’s February investor report that admitted the company had sold off a “noncore IP for USD 5.9 million” to “[provide] EG7 with further improvement to its liquidity” – an IP that later turned out to be PlanetSide – we’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And now it has, although not really in the way we expected.
Corporate filings had made clear that Daybreak sold off the PlanetSide IP to a company called Bay Tree Tower Limited, but it wasn’t obvious what was happening to PlanetSide 2 itself. The good news here is that at least it will continue on – but it won’t be under Daybreak.
The company announced this evening that it’s offloading the development of PlanetSide 2 to Toadman Interactive, which like Daybreak itself is owned by EG7, so it’s a bit of a sister company.
“We are excited to announce that our team at Toadman Interactive is taking over development duties for PlanetSide 2. Our colleagues at Rogue Planet Games have created a unique gaming experience that has thrived for over a decade. We have assembled a team of developers who have many years of experience working on Massively Multiplayer Online games and First Person Shooters. Although we are not the purchaser of the franchise, the team is delighted to carry the PlanetSide 2 torch forward. Additionally, we will continue working with the Daybreak Games publishing team to ensure the game continues to receive best-in-class marketing and community support.”
Toadman then continues on with a roadmap for the rest of 2024 that includes a dozen or so events, reworks of Capture the Conduit and directive rewards and Sunderer modules, a new assault facility and game mode coming this summer, and the 12 anniversary “expansion update” with new vehicle and gear.
“[T]o accomplish our goals for the year, there will be a learning curve involved, not only for technical reasons, but also because PlanetSide 2 is a large and venerable game with many gameplay niches and a deeply passionate community,” the new team says. “This transition has been under way for several months and is largely the reason updates have been smaller and slower lately than what the community is used to seeing.”
The PlanetSide 2 Reddit is somewhere between a full panic and an eyeroll over the news, declaring this outlook tantamount to maintenance mode, though there are a few people pointing out that at least the game isn’t being chucked out the window. (There are certainly plenty of Daybreak games that weren’t so lucky.)
It’s unclear what’s happening to the Daybreak Rogue Planet substudio and the people still working there; it’s likewise unclear whether Bay Tree’s subsidiaries will actually be developing a new game in the franchise they just bought.
