''PlanetSide Arena'' was a

massively multiplayer online first-person shooter A massively multiplayer online first-person shooter game (MMOFPS) is an online game which mixes the genres of first-person shooter and massively multiplayer online game. A MMOFPS is a real-time shooter experience where a very large number of play ...

developed by

Daybreak Game Company Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...

. A spin-off of ''

PlanetSide 2 ''PlanetSide 2'' is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter developed by Rogue Planet Games and published by Daybreak Game Company. The game supports battles with thousands of players (up to 2,000 on a single map) and inc ...

'', the game supported over 1,000 players per match and featured match-based

capture the flag Capture the flag (CTF) is a traditional outdoor sport where two or more teams each have a flag (or other markers) and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base", and bring it safely back to their own base. ...

team deathmatch Deathmatch, also known as free-for-all, is a gameplay mode integrated into many shooter games, including first-person shooter (FPS), and real-time strategy (RTS) video games, where the goal is to kill (or "frag") the other players' characters a ...

, and battle royale game modes. ''PlanetSide Arena'' was released for Early Access on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

on September 19, 2019. It was shut down on January 10, 2020, due to low player counts.

Gameplay

''PlanetSide Arena'' features many of the same weapons, environments, game mechanics and vehicles present in ''PlanetSide 2'', taking place on the continent Amerish years after the original conflict on the planet Auraxis has ended. Multiple game modes, including conquest,

, and battle royale are played on a single a 8km by 8km map. Like ''PlanetSide 2'', players can pick between classes, although this has been reduced to just three from the original game's six; all classes have unique abilities and access to a jetpack. Players could also play in

third-person perspective Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the a ...

in some game modes. Players can pick up and use weapons that are scattered around the map after deploying onto the battlefield, or have access to them at the start of the round via a

loot box In video games, a loot box (also called a loot crate or prize crate) is a consumable virtual item which can be redeemed to receive a randomised selection of further virtual items, or Loot (video gaming), loot, ranging from simple customization ...

system.

History

''PlanetSide Arena'' was initially announced by Daybreak Game Company on December 13, 2018. The game was initially planned to launch on Steam on January 29, 2019, and would not be

free-to-play Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...

. It would also feature a

battle pass In the video game industry, a battle pass is a type of monetization approach that provides additional content for a game usually through a tiered system, rewarding the player with in-game items for playing the game and completing specific chal ...

system along with other microtransactions. ''PlanetSide Arena'' was delayed multiple times before its release, missing its initial release date. It was released on September 19, 2019, in Early Access on Steam. The game relied on a

microtransaction Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransact ...

business model where players could purchase loot boxes to obtain cosmetics and in-game items. On January 10, 2020, the ''PlanetSide Arena'' servers were taken down, and all in-game purchases were refunded. Consistently low player counts, caused by competition from other games in the genre like ''

Apex Legends ''Apex Legends'' is a free-to-play Battle royale game, battle royale-hero shooter game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in February 2019, for Nintendo ...

'' and general dissatisfaction with the game from ''PlanetSide 2'' players, made playing viable matches impossible. Near the end of the game's lifespan, less than 20 players were concurrently online at any given time. Many of the assets and graphical improvements to ''PlanetSide Arena'' were later incorporated into ''PlanetSide 2'', including an upgrade to the ForgeLight engine to support

DirectX 11 Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

References

Battle royale games 2019 video games Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter games First-person shooter multiplayer online games Free-to-play video games Windows games Windows-only games Video games containing loot boxes Video games containing battle passes Multiplayer online games Video games developed in the United States Video games set on fictional planets {{Daybreak Game Company