SOE president outs "PlanetSide Next"

By Robert Purchese Published 12 October, 2009

"REALLY MASSIVE," shouts Smedley.

Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley has written a blog about "What PlanetSide Next means to me", revealing the first scraps of information and possible title for the game.

"To me, PlanetSide Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in PlanetSide and make it a lot better," he wrote (spotted by Joystiq).

"Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organisation, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics."

Smedley also mentioned PlanetSide's bad bits; the Santcuary concept, he said, "slowed" things down, and the game didn't get people back into the action "quickly enough".

Last month, SOE sent an email to PlanetSide subscribers asking for input on what a sequel should contain.

However, Sony Online Entertainment hasn't officially revealed the game, so features or titles may be subject to change.

PlanetSide is a massively-multiplayer online shooter that appeared on PC here in 2003. Check out our re-review from last year to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • ChthonicEcho #1 2 years ago

    REALLY MASSIVE!

    ...Well, I now am completely positive something's wrong with me, as I took that completely out of context.

  • Lexx87 #2 2 years ago

    REALLY MASSIVE

  • AtomicBanana #3 2 years ago

    I still remember the beta, and getting my retail disc a day early and flying around a largely empty world messing around. I was one of the first CR5's for TR, even played with SmokeJumper a few times. I'm hoping this turns out good!

  • nick303 #4 2 years ago

    If they can get the numbers and ‘feel ‘of Planetside right after beta then i’m definitely up for this new one.

  • George-Roper #5 2 years ago

    They need to manage the persistence much better, this time around. The game (Planetside) degenerated into to'ing and fro'ing over captured areas, which never gave any impression of progression.

    Don't get me wrong, I fucking loved getting in my MAX, clamping down in corridors and letting rip with the miniguns. It was truly excellent at that level but the bigger picture very quickly became 'meh', as all the effort put into a campaign would be undone the very next day.

  • oceanclub #6 2 years ago

    PlanetSide was one of the great gaming what-ifs for me. When it first appeared, it was single-digit-frames unplayable... by the time I upgraded my machine to play it, I found noone else was. Hopefully PlanetSide 2 comes to pass.

  • FTM #7 2 years ago

    there was nothing better than getting a full squa don teamspeak and getting together at base to form up, get on board the dropship and head off...theres nothing come close as a game to that build up...then dropping as a squad onto a tower...it was a great experience

  • Schiraman #8 2 years ago

    Planetside is one of my favourite games of all time, and a true sequel would jump instantly to the top of my most wanted list. Unfortunately it's difficult to imagine SOE doing a good job with it... *crosses fingers*

  • 57th_FoX #9 2 years ago

    finally god answered my prayers

  • Byblos1 #10 2 years ago

    With PlanetSide 2, MAG and Dust 514 it looks like developers are finally seeing how big the MMOFPS could be (excuse the pun). It's not like they have much hope going against WoW and Star Wars anyway..

  • RedPanda #11 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Freek #12 2 years ago

    Funny statement, I geuse he diden't know his own company is publishing a shooter literally called Massive Action Game, that does exactly that.
    Edited by 1 at 12/10/09 @ 15:53

  • anomagnus #13 2 years ago

    what killed this game, between the open beta, and when i quit one year after launch, was the fee.

    When this game was free, it was fucking epic. I;m not saying the game should be free, but it is a game that is MADE for micro payments

  • comedian #14 2 years ago

    Please don't ruin it with giant fucking mechs again.

  • Eraysor #15 2 years ago

    I missed out on the original, so extremely interested in this one.

  • Spekingur #16 2 years ago

    The first one should be made completely free and allow people to host their own servers (why not, it's gone and died, right?) - it was the required fee that killed the first one. I hope they won't do the same mistake with the next one.
    Plus, it will probably be released on consoles. Hopefully it won't be consoles only though.

  • Macross #17 2 years ago

    oh god im going to have to clone myself or become sufficiently uber to play both this and dust 514 at the same time >.

  • Quine #18 2 years ago

    I will sacrifice a young goat, or possibly three white doves to the gaming gods if they manage to recreate the infantry-centric feel of the original Planetside around the time of it's launch. Oh, and keep the AMSs in there guys!

  • Shrike #19 2 years ago

    Without wanting to be too pessimistic about it, it's likely that a lot of the things I liked about the first Planetside (the aforementioned build-up, extended dropship rides, strategy) are likely to be ditched in the pursuit of instant action and accessibility. As per.

  • Chufty #20 2 years ago

    Ohhhh. I want it now. Make it now!

    Freek: Planetside is a completely different ball game to MAG. Think before you type, lest you look stupid.

  • Mox #21 2 years ago

    I can't believe he thinks the Sanctuary concept was a mistake? I would have thought a fortified base position was a key part of any PvP game. Where else do you go when the other teams take all the continents? I hope he's not thinking of a "map reset" or something dire like that. And where are you going to go to sort out an orbital drop? Theyd better have orbital drops!

    Game-mechanics-wise, Planetside was pretty damned good. I'd re-think BFRs a bit and do something more elegant for vehicle spawning (teleporting into the vehicle you've dialled up seems a bit lame to me; in the early days you had to go get in your new car but this often led to a bit of a vehicle-pad pile-up), but frankly I'd keep everything else and add strategic layers on top. More proper urban environments around selected bases - abandoned buildings and suchlike. Defensive bunkers were a good idea but didn't quite work in practice.

  • RedSparrows #22 2 years ago

    REALLY MASSIVE

    (really want!)

  • Galathorn #23 2 years ago

    Please excuse my poor english.

    I played Planetside for a few months, in 2000, maybe 2001. But what an experience it was! I never experienced the same thing in any other game since. I could talk again and again about those unique adventures this game could offer. Very unique. Can't remember the outfit though, was vanuatu? Irish something...

  • SeesThroughAll #24 2 years ago

    MASSIVE DAM...

    ...Oh damn, I arrived too late :(

  • Silvervein #25 2 years ago

    I have my doubts when it comes to mmo's that mr smedley has his hands on. He's the one that gave players exactly what they wanted (his words, not the ones I'd chose), turning star wars galaxies into poor mans world of warcraft with star wars paint on it. That guy lost all credibility in my eyes back then.

  • metalangel #26 2 years ago

    Good though Planetside was, I found the infantry weapons weedy (and I was NC!) and on foot fighting to be generally pants. Ended up flying Galaxies and driving tanks instead. Other thing I found was often it was one big fight all concentrated on one cont so little was happening elsewhere, and you'd have a million people either in or waiting outside the gates for a slot to open up.

  • KoichiSenada #27 2 years ago

    You are still right in time, guys!
    Dozens of TR/NC/VS infantry combat on the planets!
    Download Planetside Aftershock today and join us!