Daybreak All-Access members can enjoy Double EXP starting Nov. 25 through Nov. 27.

Check out the latest news on our 10th Anniversary Update here.

Learn more about Daybreak All-Access {LINK REMOVED}here.

See you in game, soldier!

Starting today until December 21, Amazon Prime members can get the NS-11A Frontline assault rifle and Gladiator helmet from Amazon Prime Gaming!

• NS-11A Frontline
  
• Gladiator Helmet (Vanu Sovereignty)
  
• Gladiator Helmet (New Conglomerate)
  
• Gladiator Helmet (Terran Republic)
  
• Gladiator Helmet (Nanite Systems Operatives)

Grab the bundle here: https://gaming.amazon.com/prime-frontline-bundle

Keep an eye out for new bundles every month!

Enjoy!

On November 20, PlanetSide 2 will be celebrating ONE DECADE of war on Auraxis. In this anniversary update, you'll find loads of visual updates, balance changes, an entirely new facility capture mechanic, new items available in the Depot, and even some upcoming events. All the details found below.

Capture the Conduit CTF mechanic, new Bastion Fleet Carrier role adjustment, base changes and more!
Click here to learn more about other additions and changes in this latest update!

All PC servers will be offline for the following update on Thursday, November 17, at 6:00am PT (3:00pm CET). The downtime for this update is expected to last up to 3 hours.


Join us at 2pm PT (11pm CET), Nov. 20 on www.twitch.tv/PlanetSide2 for a head to head to head matchup with community creators, Camikaze78, CMDRCyrious, and Wintergaming, hosted by ArsheeTV! Our guests will pit the might of their faction against one another on Jaegar for this special event.
More information here: https://www.planetside2.com/news/ultimate-empire-showdown-2022

Want some DOUBLE EXPERIENCE? Check out the schedule below!

• Double Experience for ALL- Nov. 18, 19, 20
  
• Double Experience for MEMBERS - Nov. 25, 26, 27

All Access members receive double experience on the last full weekend of each month. More information here: https://www.daybreakgames.com/allaccess

The Ultimate Empire Showdown is back!

Join us for an epic event with an all-star cast! For this ten-year milestone, community creators Camikaze78, CMDRCyrious, and Wintergaming will face off on the battlefields of Auraxis with an army at their backs. Our guests will take command of Terran Republic, New Conglomerate, and Vanu Sovereignty in the ultimate test of strength. Which empire will achieve victory, and bragging rights for the next 10 years? Find out on November 20th during a special livestream hosted by event-caster ArsheeTV on https://www.twitch.tv/PlanetSide2! More details below.


Twitter / Youtube


Twitter / Twitch / Youtube


Wintergaming (Vanu Sovereignty)
Twitter / Twitch / Youtube

The Ultimate Empire Showdown begins November 20th @ 2pm pst / 11pm cet.

Four main events will test the might of our three teams. Victories are counted during each of the events below to determine which is the ultimate empire. Be sure to watch the broadcast to see post-event interviews with the team captains!

Bastion Battle (Air)

• Each team takes to the skies in a massive air battle with limited lives!

Colossus Battle (Armor)

• Teams test their mettle (and metal) in a Colossus versus Colossus armor battle.

Nason's Defiance (Infantry)

• A three-way infantry battle over the heart of Hossin.

Continent Lock Alert

• Empires put leadership and strategy to the test for this final alert challenge.

This year we have a special guest broadcaster! Tune in to our Twitch page and enjoy the full broadcast streamed by guest streamer ArsheeTV!

Follow ArsheeTV on Twitter and Twitch!


This special event is supported by PlanetSide Battles! These amazing event organizers and community members will join the fray as reinforcements for each empire, and be broadcasting the event on the PlanetSide Battles Twitch channels! Show your support by following PSB on Twitter and Twitch!


Mark your calendar, soldiers, and be sure to drop by https://www.twitch.tv/planetside2 on November 20th at 2pm PT, 11pm CET. Let's make this 10-year milestone one to remember!

PlanetSide 2's 10th anniversary is November 20th, and we are all super hyped to celebrate it with you! Starting tomorrow, November 4th each weekend all players will get Double XP through November 20th! Rack up that double XP and let us know on Twitter what you're spending your certs on. Members receive Double XP on Nov. 25, 26, and 27. Learn more about Daybreak All-Access Membership here.


Join us Saturday, November 5th @ 2pm PDT. as we attempt to unofficially break the world record for "most players in an online fps battle." 

This PTS update contains lots of changes and additions which you can read up on in our latest Dev Letter posted here.

Get ready to partake in this epic event by downloading the PTS build here. Patch notes for this build will be shared later this week.




Our Extra Life event is going strong with massive support from our community! We have reached $13,457 of our $32,000 goal!

We have received tremendous support from outfits, content creators and fans alike! THANK YOU!!! Check the contributor's list and progress here.

The cause is mighty, and we can't thank you enough for the donations, no matter how large or small.

Learn how you can become an Extra Life team member or donator here.

See you all in game this weekend!

- Mithril, PlanetSide 2 CM

Hey there. In the last dev letter, we covered some of the graphical improvements on the way in the 10th Anniversary Update. This time we'll look at the gameplay side of things.

This anniversary, we'll be shaking up the battlefields of Auraxis with a new way to capture bases. Enter: Capture the Conduit, a CTF-style capture mechanic that focuses on movement and multiple objectives.

When attacking a Conduit Outpost, attackers will need to grab control of a "Repo" (kind of like a generator) that they can deposit the flag into. At that point, attackers try to bring as many Conduits (flags) back to their Repo as they can. Each flag capture here scores a "strike" against the base. Each base has different numbers of flags, repos, and strike counts, depending on their design. The faction to score the last strike against the defender's base will capture the base for themselves. Alternatively, defenders can quickly defend a base if they can re-secure all of their Repos.

Unlike the Control-based gameplay of the last 10 years, Capture the Conduit encourages movement throughout a base by giving multiple objectives to attackers and defenders. Attackers need to keep control of their Repo while also clearing the way for flag runners, and defenders can not only keep a lock on their flagstands, but also push to re-secure the Repos to fend off an advance. Some class compositions will shine more with this capture mechanic than Control, as well. For example: Light Assaults now have a solid role as the most mobile flag runners, and long-range Infiltrators now add value to a fight by being able to snipe VIP targets that might otherwise escape.

Many bases have been retrofitted with CTF-style gameplay, but we wanted to make sure it made sense for the base layouts, so certain continents will see less CTF locations than others. This new capture mechanic will make its debut during this weekend's PTS event, and we'll be offering a more in-depth review of the system later on down the line.

Conduits are pulled from these podiums, and regenerate after being captured.

With the Anniversary Update, we'd like to shift the Bastion Fleet Carrier's role from the one-person point-and-click farming chariot it eventually became, to one that heavily influences the map meta and encourages teamwork. In order to achieve those goals, we've removed the Mauler Cannons and the Attack command entirely, and have implemented three new commands that the captain will have access to: Lockdown, Assault, and Anchor.

• Issuing the Lockdown command over an allied facility area that is being captured will cause the Fleet Carrier to fly over and pause the capture timer.
  
• Issuing the Assault command over an enemy facility area will accelerate the capture timer of a facility that's currently being captured, as if it had one additional capture point already controlled in your favor.
  
• Issuing the Anchor command will turn the Bastion into a spawn point for the entire faction.

Each of these commands last until the Fleet Carrier issues a new command or is destroyed. The changes here ensure that a Fleet Carrier, when present, can alter the course of the map, and act as a high-value target during Alerts.

Bastion Fleet Carrier against an updated Esamir sky.

With the first 1v1 season of Outfit Wars ending earlier this month, a topic that gained some traction within the community was the strength of shotguns in the meta, as well as certain New Conglomerate weaponry and the CB-ARX Newton carbine. Tuning has been done to bring some of the standouts in line with other weapons and factions, and we've touched upon other areas that have been needing revision as well. These adjustments will be made clear in the PTS patch notes for this weekend's event.

Aegis Shield's recovery rate and total health will be reeled in a bit as well.

Originally implemented back in 2019, the Spawn Priority System suggested spawn options that were intended to be relevant to the player, as well as "create good fights" and balance populations around the map. For the most part, it achieved that. However, it was very expensive (anywhere from 1.5x to 3x as expensive as the less-popular legacy spawn system we're currently using) in terms of server performance, which caused its share of issues. We've recently made optimizations to the Spawn Priority System, and intend to bring it back for the anniversary. The Spawn Priority System will use a queuing mechanism to distribute the load of spawn requests over multiple frames, so the server (hopefully) doesn't get bogged down. We'll want to test just how effective this technique is during the PTS event this weekend.

Unrelated to the priority system above, we've also disabled the remote-deployment of vehicles at the moment, with the goals of slowing down the pace of deployment around the map, bringing us back to earlier times where terminals had more value as sub-objectives, and vehicles could more easily find gunners willing to hop in. This change is non-destructive, however, and we can return it with relative ease if the design goals aren't being met.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could test all of the cool content in this update and casually break a world record at the same time? Well, you can! This Saturday (Nov. 05) at 2pm PT (10pm CET) join us on the Public Test Server to unofficially break the world record for the most players in an online FPS battle. Back in 2015, we achieved this Guinness World Record by hitting 1,158 players. For this event, we're aiming a bit higher. So jump online, see the new sights, test the new content, and we'll even reward you a special title for the participation.

You can download the Public Test Server client here.


Chaos, utter, glorious chaos.

Between this article and the last, we cover most of the main beats of our anniversary update. However, we do still have some odds and ends on the way. We can talk about these as we get a bit closer to the day, and share EVEN MORE surprises and events landing this November.

Thanks all. Looking forward to sharing the PTS patch notes this Friday.

-Wrel, Lead Designer

In 2015 we crushed the Guinness World Record for most players in an online FPS battle with a whopping 1,158 players. This year we want to see our fellow Auraxians surpass that in a new unofficial world record breaking PTS event on November 5th @ 2pm PDT / 11pm CEST!


With PlanetSide 2's 10th anniversary just around the corner you’ll also be able to playtest the upcoming changes and additions coming in November while being a part of gaming history. Plus, all participants of this record breaking playtest will be rewarded with a special title.


Check out our Dev Letter next week for the full details on this event and a first look at some of the upcoming gameplay changes coming in the anniversary update.


See you soon, auraxians!


-Mithril, PlanetSide 2 CM

Well hello there. We are rapidly approaching our ten-year anniversary, and as mentioned in the last dev letter, we've taken some time to review the roadmap and realign our goals for the end of the year. We'll get into where we landed on that, talk about the last Outfit Wars, and give you some insight into what you'll see for the 10-year anniversary update.


Despite keeping pretty good pace with our initial ambitions toward the start of the year, the development of the 1v1 version of Outfit Wars took longer than anticipated, putting us on the back foot for subsequent releases. After taking most of September to get realigned and generally slow down, a lot of what was originally intentioned for the last leg of the year has at this point been put on the backburner. Don't despair though, because we've still got a lot of important updates and fun stuff in the works for November. Before we get into that though, Outfit Wars.

The number of upcoming redacted is, unfortunately, also redacted.


With the first Nexus season of Outfit Wars now officially behind us, it's safe to say that this event was a mixed success. A solid format that creates a clearer competitive venue, those who have played on Nexus seem to really enjoy it, and the casting of each event by community members was top notch. On the flip side of that, the first three weeks were marred by issues with hitching, team sorting, and UI readability problems; the map has at least a couple areas that can use some cleanup; and there are some functionality improvements we can make for squads and platoons getting organized in the zone, among other issues. That said, based on the number of participants and the quality of teams making their way to the top, it seems like we have a solid foundation to build upon for future wars.

Congratulations to the winners of this first 1v1 season!

Connery:

• Gold: Recursion
  
• Silver: IRON FORGED ALLIANCE
  
• Bronze: Un1ty

Emerald:

• Gold: GOBLIN JUMPERS
  
• Silver: Recursion
  
• Bronze: Vanu Sovereign Katz

Miller:

• Gold: 1e Regiment des Para Commandos
  
• Silver: Los Piratos
  
• Bronze: Dignity of War Tactical

Cobalt:

• Gold: Big Men
  
• Silver: Hydra
  
• Bronze: CHRISTIAN DIOR

SolTech:

• Gold: Onslaught Union
  
• Silver: The Last Ravens
  
• Bronze: WECN

A big part of what's coming in November pertains to improving the visual feel of the game. We're not trying to reinvent the look, and even to call it an overhaul would be reaching a bit beyond our targets, but we are pushing the art style forward. The intention here is to drop a fresh coat of paint on the existing game, which is possible thanks to some new tech, revisions to existing art, and a lot of work behind the scenes. Standard disclaimer: What you'll see below is in almost all cases, a work in progress, as tuning, polish, and testing remains to be done. 


When it comes to anti-aliasing (the smoothing of jagged edge visuals,) PlanetSide 2 has used "Edge AA," which is realistically about one step above not having any anti-aliasing at all. With the November update, we'll be adding options for TAA (temporal anti-aliasing) FXAA (fast approximate anti-aliasing) and a combination for TAA+FXAA.

An example of TAA+FXAA turned on, eliminating a lot of the jagged edges you'd typically see in Sanctuary.
Click here for a before and after comparison.


Revisiting the Art
We first looked into reverting back to older, larger texture sheets to see if there would be any significant gains in restoring them. That investigation yielded few positive results, so we ultimately made the choice to push the art forward than to fall backward. A couple of the changes we've targeted are to make our metals feel more like metal, and to bring back some of the specularity (shininess,) and dial back some of the places where we use grunge overlays excessively.

With the updated Lightning you'll see more metallics, more vibrant paint, with more clearly defined edges.

Click here for a before and after comparison.


Interior Sky
One of the background technologies we've developed is the ability to detect and change a sky file while in an interior space. Esamir's Containment Sites, don't really do this, despite faking it pretty well with designer-placed server volumes. With the new tech, we are able to integrate volumes into the props themselves that can align to the actual shape of the building. We currently use this tech to neutralize the impact of the outdoor lighting on the indoor spaces.

Using the new indoor sky, we can create interior spaces that feel more true to how they would be lit. You can also see less grungy interior walls of the updated art here as well.

Click here for a before and after comparison.


Screen Space Reflections

With the changes to specularity, we've also added an option to take it a step further. "Screen Space Reflections" (or SSR) is a technique of adding reflections to surfaces, based on what the camera can currently see. There are definitely limitations to this technique, but it creates a cool effect that can add more life to a space. Here's an example.

With SSR enabled, you can see reflections on the floor from the surrounding lights and equipment. As a note the interior sky file in the Tech Plant here is still a work in progress, and way darker than we'll send Live.

Click here for a before and after comparison.


Water Reflections

Similar to the SSR above, we've also added reflections to water surfaces. This quality is handled in a setting separate from SSR, so you can tailor the visuals. With water reflections, we can more clearly differentiate the water's surface from what's below, instead of the juice-drink sort of look we have currently. You'll also see terrain and objects reflected on the water's surface.

Both the sky, terrain, and structures can be seen reflected in this shot.

Click here for a before and after comparison.

Explosions!

One of the steps we're taking to improve on the visuals is to revamp ground explosions from projectile impacts (like tank cannon shells hitting the ground.) The end result will feel more modern, be better optimized, and help resolve a long-standing problem where explosions that land close to you can be very difficult to see. Here are some examples of old versus new, noting that these, like many of what's been showed already are work in progress.

Old impact.


New impact.

But wait, there is, indeed, more.
What's shown above is some, but certainly not all, of the visual updates we'll be making in November. On the gameplay front standby for a better performing spawn priority system, a smattering of balance adjustments, new tricks up the Bastion Fleet Carrier's sleeve, and a new style of facility capture gameplay that will change the battlefields of Auraxis forever. Soooooo, we'll talk about it all as we move into November!

Thanks all.

-Wrel, Lead Designer

The first Outfit Wars on Nexus have concluded and the champions of each server have been crowned!

Thank you to all participants of the event including the excellent community of broadcasters, api masters, and you, the fans!

Congratulations! 👏👏👏

Tune in to your local match schedule in game via the outfit wars tab. Root for your favorite outfit in the comments below!

You can watch the matches unfold on https://www.twitch.tv/arsheetv

Follow Us on Twitter.
Like Us on Facebook.
Subscribe to our Youtube channel.