Interview: The Legacy and Future of Planetside

Planetside is one of the longest on-going MMO franchises out there. The franchise just celebrated its 17 year anniversary just a couple of weeks ago. That said, it’s still going strong and developer Rogue Planet Games shows no signs of stopping.

We got to chat with studio lead Andy Sites to chat about the series going forward (including Planetside 3) and maintaining an online-only title in a work from home environment amidst a pandemic.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sequels and Spin-offs

Right off the bat, I asked Sites why the hell we haven’t seen a Planetside 3. After all, the second game is steadily approaching its 8th anniversary. Many studios would’ve likely opted to release a new game in the series by now and while there was a spin-off planned, they’ve largely kept focus on Planetside 2 which still thrives.

“With regards to Planetside 2, there’s still, like you said, a lot of life left in it. We are actually starting to see declines over the last couple of years and it was getting to the point where we started working on Planetside Arena,” Sites said.

Planetside Arena was a canceled arena shooter and battle royale game set in the Planetside universe. It was set to release on Xbox One, PS4, and PC but after an incredibly troubled early access release and plenty of backlash, Rogue Planet Games decided it was better to scrap the entire game. The team realized it wasn’t the direction they wanted to go in and regrouped to try and figure out what the franchise truly needed.

“We felt an obligation to do more than that. We didn’t feel like the battle royale rule set was going to have the kind of legs that we needed it to. So early on, we transitioned it to be an arena shooter. So, you know, while battle royale mode was going to be one of the available options to play, what we wanted to do was try and create modes that could recreate the amazing moments that are unique to Planetside 2. The massive battles and the combined arms combat with ground vehicles and aircraft and infantry.”

The idea was pretty simple: Get those epic moments that people love about Planetside 2 but put them as the conclusion to every match in Planetside Arena but it wasn’t coming together.

“Frankly, we ended up releasing it before we had the full feature set and all the modes that we thought were going to really differentiate it ready to roll out. So when we went into early access, it was just a battle royale mode, but it was at scale. We had larger teams and the matches than any other battle royale modes had, but it just didn’t deliver the Planetside 2 experience that we wanted it to.”

With the inevitable Planetside 3, Sites is keen on noting that it’s not about going to be making it bigger and better in the sense of more spectacle. It’s about expanding the universe in a way that makes sense.

“As we head down the road towards the sequel, we’re not going to be doing a sequel to dethrone the game that dethroned Planetside 2. We’re going to be making a sequel to just further grow the Planetside universe.”

With games having longer lifespans, the problem of developing new, meaningful content grows larger. Rockstar Games has been supporting GTA Online since 2013 and many wonder how much more they can put in this game without really creatively bankrupting themselves for Grand Theft Auto VI. Sites and his team understand that pressure and the idea of “topping yourself”.

“That is one of the challenges with why we’re not rushing, rushing Planetside 3 out is there are just the expectations, not just from the players, but on ourselves. There was such a massive progression between Planetside 1 and Planetside 2. We want to ensure that there’s that and more between Planetside 2 and Planetside 3 because again, there’s a diehard player base that’s been playing Planetside 2 for years now,” said Sites.

“And we want to ensure that we’re continuing to support that game, but we also want to make sure that whenever we create a sequel, that it’s living up to the expectations that everyone that is either currently playing or has played a Planetside game before wants to see. So yes, a lot of weight on our shoulders.”

Seven Years Strong

The team behind the series is why it has been able to achieve its longevity. The reason why it continues to thrive is due to the fact that the developers are fans of the game themselves.

“At its foundation, it’s having a team of people that actually are really passionate about the game and want to be there. You know, I’ve worked on projects where people are forced to work on the game that they’re working on. They just don’t put the same effort into it. They don’t have the same level of passion. When we rolled out Rogue Planet Games and when we said our focus is going to be the Planetside franchise, I assembled a team of people that want that, that lived and breathe Planetside, game development, and the game itself.”

With that passion, Site and the team at Rogue Planet Games is able to generate ideas. It’s just a matter of how efficiently they can bring them to life. It’s also key to adapt to the live environment and being able to correct things or even change things based on how players play the game.

“Planetside today is different than what it was five years ago and different than what it was a year ago. So, making sure that we have a high-level roadmap that we laid out for the year. But it requires a lot of course corrections along the way because a feature that rolled out might not be performing the way we want it to, or might not be having the effect that we wanted it to. So we make some changes to, you know, a follow up feature that was meant to compliment it,” said Sites.

“We see that players are doing something that with a feature or some content that we didn’t expect them to do. And we go, you know what? We should keep heading down this path. Let’s get some more stuff like this in the game and maybe drop a couple of the things that just aren’t as important. So it’s a balancing act and it’s really just understanding what the community likes.”

The plan, regardless of when a third game comes, is to support Planetside 2 for at least another 7 years. Sites’ experience on games like Everquest made him realize people are willing to stay and commit to games longterm if they’re well-supported.

“Especially after this Escalation update with Planetside 2, we’ve not only breathed new life into the game, but it’s on a trajectory right now to grow pretty significantly in a way that we never expected. So, as we continue planning a true sequel for the game we need to ensure that we’re providing Planetside 2 the level of support to allow it, to have the legs that like an Everquest or Everquest 2 has shown to have. So yeah, we plan on supporting it and giving players a place to go that love Planetside 2 an opportunity to continue playing for as long as we can keep it going.”

Sites said that they’re also looking into bringing Planetside 2 to more consoles, such as Xbox Series X and PS5, but haven’t made a formal decision. One would imagine that if Rogue Planet Games is wanting to give this game another 7 years of life, they’ll want to make sure people have a place that makes sense to play it, though.

Long Live Planetside 2

Throughout our interview, Andy Sites’ passion was visible. He could talk to you all day about Planetside if you wanted him to. What he really wanted people to know is that Planetside 2 is alive and well and it’s going to continue to be regularly supported with frequent updates of substance.

Sites noted they want to keep player engagement sustainable through these updates. Rogue Planet Games wants to keep people playing rather than have to convince players to come back with each update.

“The big message that we’re getting across to our community is that we’ve done big updates in the past, but they’ve typically been followed by lulls of very few updates for several months. What we want to do is with the Escalation update is really set expectations that this is just the beginning for us,” said Sites.

“We’ve got a bigger team size where we’re reinvesting for the first time, we’re starting to hire more people again, because of the positive impact of the update. Our intent is to get these updates out every month.”

At the time of the interview, Sites noted they had already been planning the next two months of updates. The game is already packed to the brim with content and Planetside aims to continue adding more. Already, the game has a content creator program that lets players create videos and other cool content via Planetside’s tools. The community engagement is a major part of the game and the team is doing anything they can to support their passion for the franchise.

Planetside 2 is out now on PC and PS4.