Recent reviews by Inogine

So... Help us shape the future of Planetside... So it's dead then?

TLDR version? Skip to the end.

"Wage war across an immense, ravaged warzone, on a scale unrivaled by any other arena game."
I'm assuming we're talking Battle Royals since the little clip you have there is of a tried and copied BR mechanic. Why yes, you do have a larger scale than Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena maps. For Battle Royal games you are, however, bog standard in size. With the durability of vehicles, there's nothing to brag about on the vehicle side either... In fact, yours are slower. Hiding your lower scale a bit there? It doesn't feel like a large map in all honesty. Doesn't look it either. I don't see anything here to really set yourself out from the other BRs EXCEPT the Planetside skin... And you used the weakest parts of its colors for your palette with minimal effort put in to actually sell the scale that could offer you with some minor tweaks.

About what I'd expect. Graphics are much more simplified cell shaded versions than the previous incarnation a high percentage of content was ripped from and that helps a lot with performance. There's also no where near the amount of players on screen at once so the net code feels tighter, but that's an insanely unfair comparison to say... Planetside 2. The *real* test of performance will come when they actually have large player numbers on the map at the same time. As it stands at the moment, this is simply a small room. Largest I've seen so far is 12 v 12. Or at least it felt like that with the squad starts. Teams feels like even less people on the map with me often reaching the last battle with perhaps one gunfight under my belt. (Teams 3 player cue is dead as of this writing.)

Cell shaded lands look nice. Good job. There's enough clutter thrown into your reused buildings from PS2 to make them a little more usable in firefights. Effects are pretty standard. Just nice with nothing really standout.

What do I mean here? Medic, Engineer, Light Assault. Your three go to classes in this game.

Medic's a carbon copy of Planetside 2's medic with Light Assault's jetpack slapped atop it. One of the stronger classes as it has a long range scout rifle to top out it's arsenal. To be fair, the NS Heavy Blaster can give it a run for it's money with a keen eye. What really gives it the edge, however, are the regenerative capabilities. No pickups required to top those shields and health back off during an active firefight.

Engineer's a weaker loadout from Planetside 2's. Remember that spitfire turret that only really serves as a distraction at best unless you spammed a lot of them together and caught the enemy by complete surprise where he couldn't just hide around a corner? Yep, that's what you get. Feels pretty much the same here at it's top tier upgrade. I get why it's weak, but why even include it if that's the case? The shield wall, however, is the true strength here. Deployable wall (IE: most other BR's build mechanics stripped to a small shield) to absorb most damage for you. What you'll basically be wanting to use with this one. And yes, Light Assault's jetpack.

Light Assault is well... the Light Assault from Planetside 2 pretty much to a fault. You get that quick jump jet forward to assault positions. And now you get a flash totem too to blind your opponents. Good for ambushes, but during an assault when your enemy might be on ground *you* are assaulting? Questionable.

What really differentiates these further are the abilities you unlock for the classes. Here's where it gets a bit scummy as these boosts can range from pretty universally meh to the *go to ability* with few and far between. Balancing is going to be a rather large issue here I suspect. Add in that once things have ramped up and people are geared up with their preferred skill loadouts and know how to use them and your newer players will suffer immensely with little in the way of actual recourse. The chance for abuse and squeezing consumers for that little bit extra of daybreak cash(IE: Real money) is pretty obvious here with only a few tweaks needed to turn these into must haves. These are not cosmetics and certainly not "entirely useless in the grand scheme of it" perks. RNG weighting the lootbox drops can also make this system very questionable in terms of balance and fairness. This game isn't like Planetside 2 where the objective play is what you're after. This is direct combat with nothing else and these advantages do matter.

Here's where it gets subjective. Some folks like Battle Royals. Some don't. I'm personally not a fan, so strike one on me there before I've left the gate. That said, how does combat feel? Cause at the end of the day it's just a shooter dressed up slightly differently.

Movement feels pretty sluggish compared to say Apex Legends. Clunky even by comparison. Think a slower PUBG and you've got it, but with jetpacks. Time to kill is... huge. You can drop an enemy in about a clip, but it feels much slower than in other BRs, for better or worse.

Vehicle play is... pretty terrible. The addition of a driver/gunner/gunner system in the tanks is an interesting move compared to PS2. Curious to see how that plays out and if that does actually solve the tank versus light vehicles problem PS2 suffers from. However, vehicle health and the lack of splash (Direct hits or get out) makes vehicles rather lackluster to play. No way to actively heal them either so they're gonna die. Combined arms doesn't exist here, they're merely disposable transports. Some will like that, some won't. It's false advertising at the moment at any rate.

Cheating is already here in the worst forms. Planetside 2 has suffered from various hacks from the obvious ram hacks to subtile hitbox hacks that makes killing enemies easier. Recently the new file system has allowed for the humble notepad editor to gain immense power by allowing a vehicle to ram for infinite damage. DBG have done little to nothing to actually curb this, which doesn't bode well for this title either if that's their handling of an active game. Given the direct combat nature of this game, I suspect it will only get worse and they either won't, or can't deal with the cheaters.

A bog standard BR any way you look at it with nothing to draw in a crowd. Progression is locked behind lootboxes and if that doesn't concern you or you think it'll get better, I've got many bridges to sell you and would like to know your bank account figures to gauge pricing. The jetpacks offer some verticality, but other BRs have even more than that between Apex Legends and Fortnite. The large battles are not here yet and given the track record of this developer promising features and failing to meet them, I wouldn't invest heavily here. The advantages mods give you are, for now, tame but it wouldn't take much to introduce scummier practices than what is already in.

I do not recommend this game unless you are desperate for something new to play and don't care about the game's future. Even then, there are better options to invest your time in given this company's track record, which I again stress is bad. I'd always recommend trying it yourself if you're curious and enjoying what you can from it, but I'd heavily stress not handing the developers any money until they show some actual integrity rather than integrating another lootbox ridden game like EA's Battlefront 2.