Play PlanetSide for free

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 January, 2006

For a whole year.

The PlanetSide development team is planning to launch a "Fodder Program" in mid February that'll allow players to create a new account and play for free for a whole year.

Access to the massively multiplayer FPS will be limited in terms of BattleRank and CommandRank. "Essentially, new players will be able to have access to any part of the game but they will be limited on the diversity of their arsenal," said developer Enrico Pallazzo in a recent forum post outlining various new additions to the game.

Speaking of which, newcomers should have an easier time of starting out thanks to a new player training facility, added, "in hopes of getting new players/characters into battle within a couple minutes of entering the game at the same time teaching them how to play".

The Fodder Program should kick off on February 14th, the developer estimates. We'll let you know if that changes.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • rinoaMW #1 6 years ago

    must be a last ditch effort to get the dwindling populations up....

  • terminalterror #2 6 years ago

    Maybe they are going for the AO model and fill the servers with players and then shove adverts in there.

    This certainly sounds tempting. I think I'll give it a miss straight after it goes free as the servers will be rammed full of new players and they probably won't be able to cope.

  • Ryuken #3 6 years ago

    This could save the game and hopefully encourage other devs to create a total wargame like this. I thoughts the ads are already in place (for US folks then).

    Btw, everyone with an old account (even trial accounts) can play the full game for 30 days again if they login again before February 28th.
    Edited by 1 at 23/01/06 @ 09:52

  • reality_cheque #4 6 years ago

    Well with a year for free losing 3 months of that while the script-kiddies get bored of it isn't so much of a pain :)

  • rinoaMW #5 6 years ago

    "This could save the game and hopefully encourage other devs to create a total wargame like this. I thoughts the ads are already in place (for US folks then)."

    what about Huxley? :)

  • Xerx3s #6 6 years ago

    So, whats the catch?

  • TheMoonRat #7 6 years ago

    They take your souls

  • Psi #8 6 years ago

    They've had adverts in game for a while already terminalterror

  • Markusdragon #9 6 years ago

    Once knew a guy who practically dropped out of school due to planetside addiction.

  • reality_cheque #10 6 years ago

    So TheMoonRat was right... they do steal your souls!

    It's a good plan - steal souls, commit great evil that then tarnishes the souls you've collected rather than your own, get the best results from this one AND the afterlife.

  • Markusdragon #11 6 years ago

    Ah, but wouldn't the tarnishing of souls be a soul-tarnishing act?

  • djchump #12 6 years ago

    Catch = "limited in terms of BattleRank and CommandRank. limited on the diversity of their arsenal"

    i.e. you'll be stuck as a crappy footsoldier with crappy guns. Hance, it's called the "Fodder Program", as in, Cannon Fodder. So they existing players have a big bunch of n00bs to pwn and to get the decent weapons that give you a fighting chance, you'll have to upgrade/pay ;-)

  • reality_cheque #13 6 years ago

    Markus: They probably have an evil wizard working there, he can sort all this out. After all (as those dodgy Christian comics show) wizards are going to go to hell anyway so he might as well damn himself a little more in order to keep his bosses soulgrime free! ;)

  • vane101 #14 6 years ago

    Planetside always needed to be free. Sure, there's a hardcore who will pay for the best online battles on the Net but newbies won't, especially as there is limited community stuff in the game and people are happy to play more limited games like BF2 and Counterstrike for free.

  • Sko #15 6 years ago

    I expect the fall-off of players in Planetside is kinda exponential. Less people to shoot, so more people leave and so less people to shoot. This offer does feel a little 'last ditch'.

  • Psi #16 6 years ago

    think last ditch would be to merge all servers into one

    its a good game and i think i may give it another go, played straight after the beta closed for about 6 months it was a good laugh too.

  • Macross #17 6 years ago

    Yeah I did the same as PSI (was in the First & Only outfit on werner, it was the biggest & best for a short time :p)

    it was good back then but ultimately pointless as you could spend hours fighting over a city, cap it, go to bed, and the next day have to do the same again there was NO game world progression at all.

    I always wondered if theyd fix that. Anyway I might have a quick go to see what its like, just a shame its SOE who i hate cos they are wankers AND encourage real money for game items bullcrap.

  • PearOfAnguish #18 6 years ago

    I want to like the game, but it seems to make an effort to infuriate me every time I try it.
    Might help if it was possible to actually find a decent battle with more than a few people involved.

  • SwedBear #19 6 years ago

    Ahh, I remember this game. Some of the guys from the Windhund outfit in WWII-Online moved to Planetside and we had a lot of fun for a while. But eventually I just didn't have time anymore to put lots of hours in the weekends.

    But when we had big ops it was damn fun. Bombers, tanks, footsoliders and so on.

    BTW - which reminds me of WWII-Online. Didn't I see a mail about it being 'released' in Europe now. Anyone played it lately. Has it improved since a few years ago where there were lots of bugs and balancing issues?