Free-To-Play Report: Planetside 2 (PS4)

Welcome to the Free-to-Play Report! This is a regular feature where I download a free-to-play game and play enough to get the gist of it. I’ll relay my adventures and misadventures to you, the reader. Hopefully by the end of the report, you’ll be able to tell if the game is worth the free download or not.

Planetside 2

Free-to-play games are a relatively new concept to the console market. It seems that the PS4 is trying hard to appeal to free-to-play gamers with a wide array of games. Many of these games started on the PC, like Loadout and Warframe. Planetside 2 is no different. Originally released on the PC in November of 2012, Daybreak Game Company (Formerly Sony Online Entertainment) brought the game to PS4 on June 23rd, 2015.

At first glance, Planetside 2 offers huge battles that can’t be matched by any other game. You’re able to fly futuristic warplanes, huge tanks, and battle hundreds of enemy players with hundreds of your comrades. Sounds great right? Well, sometimes.

So How Was It?

I logged into the game for the first time (after waiting for 10 minutes in a queue), picked a faction, and found out I’m on a starter island called Koltyr. I was told that my mission is to capture three points, and that’s basically it. I don’t recall ever being told the bigger picture of the mission structure. Why am I capturing these points? What happens when I capture them and how does it relate to the rest of the game? I’ve heard this game being described as having a learning wall rather than a learning curve. I don’t think objectives are relayed sufficiently in the tutorial.

You can leave the tutorial island at any point, and I actually recommend you do so after familiarizing yourself with the controls. It is much easier to figure out how the objectives work by looking at the world map and how the bases connect to each other. The three main continents are very different from each other geographically, but all three have the same objective of capturing as many bases as possible for continent domination. Generally, your army has to control a majority of the capture points for a set amount of time in order to capture the base. If successful, the other army has a chance to recapture the base by taking back the points. This creates an interesting tug-of-war that can last for a long time.

Once you choose one of six classes, you can click the instant action button to automatically be dropped into an ongoing battle. This is the moment where you’ll find that the combat leaves something to be desired. In my opinion, the gunplay just didn’t feel right. It didn’t have the tightness of a game like Battlefield, a game that Planetside 2 seems to be striving to emulate. It seems like my movement was a bit sluggish, and aiming with a controller was more difficult than it should have been (although that may just be a personal problem). The guns I tried seemed to lack any oomph to them and generally felt like peashooters. The core gameplay is not terrible by any means, it’s definitely a serviceable shooter. However, I think Planetside 2’s controls and gun-play are holding it back from fulfilling its potential.

It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be charging a base with dozens, or even hundreds of your buddies. Watching a battle taking place between hundreds players is truly an amazing sight to behold, and taking part of it is even better. The tanks’ cannons will be booming and the aircraft will be zooming around overhead. You can see enemies running around and firing at your army, but you have protection in numbers and reach the base. You can try to jet-pack over defenses to get a flanking position with the light assault class, or focus on healing your buddies with the medic class. All the action is very chaotic in a way very few games can deliver.

It’s moments like those that make this game, and thankfully there are a lot of those moments. It was definitely a unique and addicting experience for me. The sense of awe that you get in these huge battles is, well, awesome. Thanks to the instant action button, there was always some big battle for me to take part in on both the offensive and defensive side.

Character progression is achieved by earning “Certs”, which you can use to access new abilities or weapons. You can also directly purchase new weapons and abilities with real money, but more on that later. You gain certs by earning medals and ranking up. At Battle Rank 1, I wasn’t able to access everything. Some classes and most vehicles were restricted. As I ranked up, more options became available to me. Plantside 2 did a good job of making me feeling useful even at BR1; at least I was able to be cannon fodder for my teammates in the tanks and aircraft.

How Free Is It?

You have to give Daybreak some credit here, the free starting weapons are some of the best ones in the game. I never felt the need to buy other weapons because I felt underpowered. Certs can be used to buy seemingly every weapon in the game. “Battle Cash”, the premium currency of Planetside 2, could be used to buy weapons, but I never felt a need to; my starting weapons were just fine for me. You can use the premium currency to buy cosmetic items like helmets and boosts to rank up faster, as well as weapons and weapon optics, but the latter two can be bought with in-game currency as well.

One complaint that I have is the feeling of “grind”. You know, the feeling of doing the same thing over and over for minimal gain? I felt like I wasn’t earning certs fast enough in the early levels, which could be a problem if I didn’t like the free starting gear. This is negated by the fact that this “grind” is generally pretty fun. I wasn’t killing NPCs for hours on end like MMORPGs, I was fighting other players on huge battlefields.

Worth The Download?

Planetside 2 grew on me. At first I was turned off by the feel of the guns and movement, but then I was in my first huge battle. It was the feeling of being a tiny soldier in a ginormous war that kept me coming back. I’m going to keep playing Planetside 2 after my first experiences with it. If you like shooters like Battlefield, but on a much, much bigger scale, then give Planetside 2 a go.