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PlanetSide Arena launch delayed, Founders Season revealed

PlanetSide Arena's release date is delayed and a closed beta will launch in January instead.

Charles Singletary Jr

January 24, 2019 1:20 PM

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Daybreak Games announced a new entry in its PlanetSide series of online shooters at the tail end of 2018 and, now, we've got a chunk of brand new information. PlanetSide Arena was originally set for a January 2019 launch, but the team has delayed it to March 26. A closed beta for the game will go live on January 30, though, and a special Founders Season will start on February 20, 2019.

If troubling releases in the last few years are any testament, it is almost always smarter to have an "early access" phase for a predominantly online multiplayer experience. The Daybreak Games team was transparent about the decision to delay, sharing that there are "crucial feature enhancements and core system improvements" to be made. Here's an additional excerpt from the blog post:

"This game is a passion project for our team, with massive potential to occupy a unique space within the PlanetSide series and the overall shooter genre. And while we agonized about this decision down to the deadline, 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."

The PlanetSide Arena closed beta starts on January 30 and the team will reveal details on how to gain access to it on tomorrow, January 25. The aim is to push Daybreak's hardware and infrastructure for the game to their limits so bugs and other issues are brought to the forefront and addressed before launch.

On February 20, the Founders Season will start for all players who are willing to pre-order PlanetSide Arena. Along with access to the game, there's a battle pass that will allow founders to unlock unique items up until the full launch on March 26, 2019.

PlanetSide Arena will be available on PC and will start with modes that can reach up to 500 vs 500 players in one match. Traditional PlanetSide modes will be made available after launch as well. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.

Charles Singletary Jr

News Editor

Charles Singletary Jr keeps the updates flowing as the News Editor, breaking stories while investigating the biggest topics in gaming and technology. He's pretty active on Twitter, so feel free to reach out to him @The_CSJR. Got a hot tip? Email him at Charles.Singletary@Shacknews.com.