This is the game that has killed entire Planetside franchise. Money that was desperately needed to fix existing bugs in Planetside 2, push new content and overall revitalize game were instead used to make another pointless BR clone in already oversaturated market. Mind numbing ineptitude of people responsible for managing Daybreak company has yielded results. Game has nothing of value to offer, only reedeming point in form of massive clashes is lost as at moment of posting there is around 50-40 people playing the game on ALL servers.

On the day of this review massive layoff took place at company and almost entire development team responsible for Planetside franchise was fired. Chances for Planetside Arena to accomplish any of planned future goals are basically nonexistient.

Spare yourself trouble and do not bother with this joke of a title, if you like BR games, there is plenty of competition that offer better experience in every imaginable regard. If you like massive shooters - check free Planetside 2.

I've been supporting and playing Planetside 2 since 2013. I have over 500 hours on my PS4 account, then later I build a PC to run the game much smoother. I have over 200 currently in that.

A few years ago, Daybreak was getting the majority of their revenue from H1Z1, eventually that died down and the company had to figure out what to do in order to make more money and keep their employees employed and just keep the company relevant in general.

So what are their options? Well Planetside 2 was one of their more successful and popular IPs. Since the game's launch it's been getting frequent updates and the community seems relativity happy with the game's direction for the most part (at least back in 2015-2017). Here's what they could do: Put more resources into Planetside 2 and relaunch the game and bring everyone back to the game. Similar to what Hello Games did with No Man's Sky. If they have enough resources and money they could make Planetside 3 from scratch. Or they could strip the Planetside 2 development team (which slows down updates for Planetside 2) and force them to make a battle royal game for easy money because it's what the kids and steamers are in to. And here we are...Planetside Arena.

But, I still gave them a chance. Maybe they could make something innovative and it could be fun. I signed up for the closed beta and got in. I played a few rounds and thought the game was ok. I didn't have much faith in it being a success. It didn't bring anything new to the table as far as battle royal went except for having more players. This was before the announcement that they were going to delay the game.

After months of staying silent the game is finally here. What have they done since then? Well they made it free to play, polished it up a little bit, and added loot boxes...

Remember Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA, when they added in pay to win loot boxes and there was a huge community backlash which involved EA earning the title for most downvoted comment in Reddit history? Same situation here. Battlefront 2 EA had a deluxe edition where you could pay extra cash up front for loot crates to unlock special abilities to get the advantage on other players. What does Planetside Arena have? A legendary and recruit edition that come with loot crates that give you better abilities than other players when starting out. Not only that... these crates are actually more expensive than EA's crates. There are some that cost you $10 for ONE crate! The only reason why this isn't a bigger controversy is because this game never took off.

Look at the past few games Daybreak has put out and look at their current state:
H1Z1 Just Survive: Closed in 3 years
Everquest Next: Canceled
Landmark: Shut Down in 8 months
Dragon's Prophet: Shut Down in 3 years

It was only a matter of time until they tried to cash in on one of the companies last great franchise that was still successful. I want you to think to yourself... Look at how poorly Daybreak has been putting out their games... Do you think this game is going to be relevant in a few months or a year? How long do you think it will take until they shut this game down? The game didn't even take off on launch day.

As far as the rest of the game goes there just isn't much content at all. It's just another battle royal with a Planetside skin on it with less classes, vehicles, and everyone has jetpacks. You can have some fun moments in it, but when you think about how this game couldn't reach the max player count in a single match on launch, will most likely be shut down in a year or so, the game uses EA's greedy pay to win model with lootboxes, and is just out to get your money what's the point? There are so many other battle royals to choose from. If you're new to this franchise and like what you see from the trailers, I recommend getting Planetside 2. That game has a high player count than this game did on it's launch and has way more content.


Update: Daybreak was just hit with a round of layoffs. Most of the Planetside 2 team is now gone. There's about 1 or 2 people left working on it. There were a few Planetside Arena layoffs as well. https://massivelyop.com/2019/10/11/it-looks-like-daybreaks-been-hit-with-yet-another-round-of-layoffs/

I tried to tell you this was just a quick cash grab to try to make the company stay afloat... And here we are.

What I have seen with most reviews so far is they are a knee jerk from two groups:

A) A Planetside franchise veteran that is understandably upset in the direction they are going with the franchise.

B) Or a person that sees potential and wants the game to make it out of its infancy so they pre-preemptively put a great review on it even though the game is still very unfinished.

I am just going to give you a list of pros and cons, and if the pros outweigh the cons for you, then you should play.

Pros:

-Jetpacks in Battle Royale is fun. Makes it faster, makes getting around easier. Ever try climbing rocks in PUBG? Yeah it blows, no problem with that here.
-Having a pocket vehicle is nice. You never get caught in a fun fire fight near the edge of the zone, only to win and die to the painfield. Here you can always escape even if you have to fight.\
- The gunplay is fun, its not for everyone, but it is good gunplay.
- You can respawn friendlies like Apex or Fortnite.


Cons:

- There just aren't enough people. You have to wait around for awhile, to get lobbies that are only 20%-30% full. You will get more people in a PUBG match.
- It is very much an early access game. It's unfinished no doubt. Early access covers such a range of titles at this point from barely playable, to well polished titles that just use Early Access as a hype thing. This game is about half-way through that process. Still needs polish.
- Tanks don't play so well with battle royale.
- It's not Planetside 2, fights are small, disappointing in comparison.
- Bring a pre-made or go home. No reason to play this game if you don't have a group of friends playing.
- No ping system. Especially in a Squads based game that should just be standard now.

If it can finish developing, bring more game modes or something, then maybe its worth it. But right now its just one more battle royale that doesn't have enough to set it apart. I would recommend PUBG, Fortnite, or Apex Legends before recommending this one.

Edit now that they have CTF:

Capture the Flag mode is more fun then Battle Royale. Sort of feels like you have completed it after a few hours of play and I can't see myself logging back in for it.

I'm about as diehard as Planetside fans get. I played New Conglomerate since I was old enough to hold a mouse, played Planetside 1 up until 2 came out and migrated to 2 as it was a more modern and slick version of the original experience. Yeah PS2 had a lot stripped out, but it left in the right amount to keep the Planetside name and was/is super fun to play and a great experience.

So why the down vote on Arena?

1. What makes Planetside what is it to me has been taken away. Factions and the community in them. There is no Terran Republic, no Vanu (though you get their guns) and no New Conglomerate (though the skins for the ballistic weapons are based of the NC Special weapons that have been released most recently). Instead you're a factionless 'mercenary' in a team of 12 there to kill the other teams of 12.

2. The game has no excitement and the gameplay is shallow. My first (and only) game on this account was a victory. My squad dominated the other squads. Did I feel like firefights were intense? No. Did I feel the classic BR 'HOLYCOW I NEED TO RUSH TO GRAB A GUN'? No. You start off with an upgradable loadout which takes away the initial 'f*ck me I need a weapon' of BRs.

The gunplay and moment to moment game play is just a Planetside 2 asset-flip with all the great stripped out. Planetside 2 is infantry holding a base while waves assault their lines constantly. It's massive groups of players fighting each other in canyons, on open fields with armour groups and inside bases going room to room with an experienced squad and cleaning the place out then holding that ground. Gone are the great base holds. Instead it's just a dry wanna-be-fortnite without the best of Planetside or any good difference to other BRs. The main differences between this and other BRs is the Loadout option (already in The Cycle and implemented better) and the larger squad, which just turns into a blob with randoms. Yes, Planetside 2's 'zergs' are just huge blobs of cannon fodder bumrushing bases but then you still have the tactical gameplay in between and even more so in a squad or outfit. Here it's just... nothing.

After my win and saying to a friend 'this games kinda crappy' he invited me to play on his account for a couple games while at his house and the 'pay to win' was evident. Yeah I could still grab a couple upgrades on the ground but most of the kit I needed was already there. The games I played resulted in 3 2nd places and 2 1st places. I never felt any satisfaction like you do with say PUBG, Fortnite or Apex legends during any of the wins. Speaking of my friends better loadout though...

3. The game is very heavy on microtransactions. Sure Planetside 2 has a TONNE to buy, but that games more of a sandbox battle experience and you can earn everything with a reasonable time frame, the only real advantages to buying equipment is cosmetics and the fact that real money purchases unlock on each character. Here, everything is behind lootboxes. It's more aggressive than any other game I've played. You want that nice 2x or 3.5x sight for a rifle when you hit the ground? Buy boxes and hope you get it after a few. Did I mention you get duplicates?

Over all.... this game for me is a nope. Fans of Planetside, stick to Planetside 2 and support that game. Hopefully it'll stay open or a decent company will buy the IP. BR fans, just go play Apex for your slick shooter experience (we all know Apex was the real reason this game delayed it's original launch) or go play Fornite for that more arcade experience and the massive team battles when that event happens on there.

TLDR: Not Planetside at all. Play PS2 or Apex depending on tastes.

Loot Boxes with gameplay affecting items and duplicates.

Potentially decent game ruined by greedy monetization.

All progression is achieved through lootboxes, which contain weapon and armor upgrades. You can pound out hours to earn a lootcrate with the hopes of getting something worth your time, or buy them outright.

Each lootcrate only gives 3 items. The common lootcrate, which is 3 for $1, contains 27 items, all of which are the lowest tier items you can earn. The standard lootcrate, which is what Daybreak wants you to fork money for, starts at 5 for $5, and contains 69 items.

PlanetSide is one of my favorite franchises, and I cannot in good conscious recommend this game. The fact you're forced to gamble for power makes this a hard "no" for me.

What happens if you take away everything good about Planetside 2 and then make it a Battle Royale? This game.

Why have epic campaigns between hundreds of players vying for territory when you can have another garbage BR clone. Too bad they had to waste the Planetside name on this.
I feel sorry for the people that put a lot of effort and love into something that was so obviously a hare-brained directive from out of touch management.

Edit - for anyone telling me I should somehow make this review about the future, unreleased game - my point still stands. Who wants a BR game, no matter how many squads or people on the server. You Terran and Vanu scum should just go back to playing Fortnite.

When you get promised large 250v250 player combined arms battles but instead get another mediocre Battle Royal. Not even talking about it being insanely pay to win, due to equipment being locked behind lootboxes

The Planetside 2 playerbase is not the type of playerbase that likes to play a Battle Royal game, and yet the developers decided to develop one. Two years after the first succesfull big titles did. The BR market is more than saturated, no one wants another boring and unoptimized games that does not stand out in any way. Depending on the type of gameplay a BR player likes he can already choose between 3 huge and popular games (PUBG, Fortnite and Apex Legends), there is no reason to play a worse game from a franchise he doesnt even know.

The worst part ist that instead of spending time and money on a special and unique game with a loyal playerbase that is craving for updates, Daybreak decided to spend its resources on this dead-on-arrival dumpster fire of a game.

What a great idea...