Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently had the chance to speak with PlanetSide 2 (PS2) Creative Director Matt Higby to learn how factions, combat and story will differ from its predecessor. According to Higby, the lore of the game will pick up where the first PlanetSide began, so the story won’t be a follow-up so much as a revision of the original.

Factions are one of the major changes that will be undergoing changes in the new game. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) plans to make each of the game's three faction more flavorful by adding to their backstory and giving each one more motivation and reason for hating the other. This will also include more individual flavor for each faction, right down to changes in the music and UI.

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style="font-style: italic;">Factions will matter much more in PlanetSide 2

We’re redefining what Auraxis is and spending a lot of time redefining the roles of the factions. Factions in PS2 are super-important, not just the red team versus the blue; they play the game in a completely different way. We’re creating very distinct motivations and lore for the factions, so they have their own reasons for doing what they’re doing and hating the other factions, and that all feeds into their gameplay types and the types of people who will enjoy playing those factions.

SOE also plans to further identify each combat role so that players can provide support or assault in fun and unique ways. Higby explained that players will be able to switch between roles anytime they respawn and that there will be more mobile respawn options in PS2, the Galaxy transport ship being one of the new ones.

As for vehicles, Higby also noted that another change added to PS2 is the ability to customize your own ride. These work as what Higby calls Sidegrades, which allow you to trade off one portion of the vehicle for another. As an example, maybe you want to move faster, so to do so you trade off a high-powered cannon for speed and mobility enhancements or vice versa.

Unfortunately, fans of the Core Combat expansion of the original game may not get to see the cavern content in at launch, but Higby does indicate that some of the expansion's other elements are in the game.

You can read the full interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our PlanetSide 2 Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

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