PlanetSide Arena delayed until March

Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. That’s the sound of your alarm, it’s Delay o’clock. PlanetSide Arena, the battle royale made from the bones and skin of quite-large multiplayer shooter PlanetSide 2, has been delayed. It was supposed to zip straight to a full release next Tuesday, January 29. But developers Daybreak send word that it’s been knocked back a couple of months. To needlessly keep up the alarm clock metaphor, they woke up and slammed the snooze button. But, ach sure, don't we all?

It’s now due out March 26, as the murder pushers have said in a development update. In place of the full release, a closed beta will start on January 30, and folks who pre-order will also get an early ticket to the death park on February 20 (but you shouldn’t pre-order games – RPS policy). Daybreak says they “agonized about this decision down to the deadline” but in the end decided it was for the best.

"...we ultimately decided taking extra time to supplement our feature set, fully optimize engine performance, and improve server infrastructure was absolutely necessary to deliver the quality, polished game the PlanetSide community deserves."

Fair enough mate, it’s your game. You do you.

We got an early look at PlanetSide Arena (although we didn’t get to play the demonstration) and it looks fairly typical as far as battle royalism goes. Hundreds of players, a shrinking battleground, that sort of thing. There’ll also be a 250 v 250 team homicide mode, say the creators, and they’re aiming to up the count to 500 v 500 in those mega matches some time in the future. But most importantly, every player has a quad bike in their back pocket that they can whip out and use whenever they like. That’s neat.

Anyway, aye, you’ll have to wait an extra two months for this sci-fi war boy, if you’re excited. Are you excited? I guess you like battle royale games. Oh hey, that was the topic of our latest podcast. Give it a listen.

Okay, bye. Im going back to sleep.