The arena shooter “Planetside Arena” aimed to capitalize on the battle royale hype surrounding Fortnite and Apex Legends. However, just a few months after launching in early access on Steam, the lights are already going out. The servers will shut down in January 2020. The game will never make it to PS4 and Xbox One.
This is how Planetside Arena began: The game was introduced by Daybreak Games a year ago. In December 2018, it was stated that Planetside Arena was to become a class-based battle royale shooter focused on mobility.
Daybreak Games promised large battles later to include up to 1000 players. The “Planetside” series is known for its extensive MMO battles: Planetside 2 holds the world record with 1158 players in an FPS battle.
In December 2018, it was announced that Planetside Arena was set to launch on PC in January 2019 – versions for PS4 and Xbox One were in development. At that time, it looked like a lightning launch.
Apex Legends botched the launch
Here were the issues before and during the launch: However, the launch was postponed multiple times, citing a need for more time. Initially, it was announced that Planetside Arena would be released on March 26.
But in February, it was postponed again. At that time, it was believed that the surprising success of Apex Legends was responsible for this second delay. In any case, the momentum from the announcement was lost.
Planetside Arena then launched in September 2019 on Steam in early access. However, negative news soon surfaced: there had been layoffs at Daybreak, which also affected the Planetside Arena team.
Player numbers too low for the vision of mass battles
This is what the developers say now: In a message to players from Daybreak, it is stated that they have decided to close the servers of Planetside Arena.
The player numbers made it clear that it was impossible to provide the “massive player battles” they initially envisioned.
The servers will close on January 10, 2020. Players are supposed to receive an automatic refund to their Steam account when the servers go offline.
Daybreak thanks the players for their support and states that they remain deeply connected to the Planetside universe.
What were the player numbers? In September, Planetside Arena had an average of 474 players on Steam, in October just 53. In the last 30 days, there was an average of only 11.
Battle Royale hype is likely limited to a few games
This is what’s behind it: Following the success of H1Z1, PUBG, and especially Fortnite, some studios came up with the idea to develop battle royale games. Some of these had a brief heyday, but some also disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.
For a battle royale game, it is particularly important to have many players online constantly; otherwise, players will wait forever for a match to start.
With the strong free-to-play games Fortnite and Apex Legends, new battle royale games entering the market now must offer something special to survive and build a player base.
New battle royale games rely on generating hype and ideally attracting more and more players through Twitch. They need word-of-mouth marketing.
Planetside Arena apparently did not succeed in this. The game was meant to focus on massive battles, but there simply were not enough active players.
Now the focus is on hoping for Planetside 3 from Daybreak. The studio has recently experienced some setbacks:
