PlanetSide Arena Is A New Battle Royale Title From H1Z1 Devs

PlanetSide 2 was a technological marvel when it launched in 2012. With the capability of hosting up to 2,000 players per continent, it currently holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest first-person shooter battle, with over 1158 players fighting it out in the same battle. With the recent battle royale trend making waves throughout the industry, Daybreak have jumped onto the bandwagon by developing a battle royale game set in the same PlanetSide universe. Introducing PlanetSide Arena.

“PlanetSide is a ground-breaking series that introduced the gaming world to truly epic FPS battles,” said Ji Ham, CEO of Daybreak Games. “We are very excited to introduce PlanetSide Arena as the next step in the growth of the franchise, as we continue to invest and build towards our vision for the future of the entire PlanetSide universe.”

PlanetSide Arena will feature a huge 1000-player versus mode called Massive Clash, but that’s been done before. The interesting aspect is the “solo and team battle royale modes”. In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, game designer Tony Morton told them that “PlanetSide 2 was always designed around choke points because it was all large scale battles.  It was more about ‘capture and hold’. But with battle royale, it’s about traversal, because you’re not really sure where the… endzone is going to be. So we had to make sure players were able to get from just about anywhere to anywhere…”

This is in reference to how the map is largely based on the terrain of Amerish, an existing PlanetSide 2 map, but they’ve given it a “significant rework” to make it ready for battle royale. Andy Sites, executive producer on PlanetSide Arena said that “there’s simply no other multiplayer shooter that can replicate the depth of play and massive scale of PlanetSide. PlanetSide Arena will expand and evolve the franchise with new modes, new technology and new content, delivered on a scale that only PlanetSide can offer.”

With H1Z1 seemingly performing so poorly compared to the golden days - on PC at the very least - could this move signify Daybreak’s intention to move away from H1Z1 and focus on a new battle royale title? Time will tell when PlanetSide Arena launches for PC on January 29, 2019, but for now, check out some more battle royale news with the upcoming nerf to Fortnite’s Infinity Blade.

All images courtesy of Daybreak.