Another update on Phantasy Star Online 2’s beta from producer, Satoshi Sakai. This time around, Sakai briefly touches upon the game’s story and other features such as partner characters.

The first planet in the game that you visit is Naberius, Sakai says. Rookies usually start out by training on Naberius due to the relatively low level threat level, but the player happens to run into the “Darkers”. The character next to the player character in the image above is Aphin, who also happens to be a rookie. He refers to you as “partner”.

We’ve already mentioned Xion, who gives you an item called the Matter Board, in a previous update. Sakai says you also meet two other characters—Xeno and Echo—who are your superiors and you can learn different things from them. He adds that most characters in the game will be voiced.

While Phantasy Star Online 2 is meant to be a multiplayer game, there are ways to make the solo experience more interesting. Sakai says that you can hire other Arcs members that you meet throughout the game. Once they give you their cards, you’ll be able to get them to join your party. As previously reported, you can also invite your friends’ characters as AI-controlled partners.

Phantasy Star Online 2 won’t begin service in Japan until sometime this summer, but in the meantime, you can download a Japanese character creator demo and benchmark utility.