What is planetside 2?

Planetside 2 is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on November 20, 2012. It is the remake to Planetside which originally released in 2003. Officially announced on July 7, 2011 at the Sony Fan Fair, the second instalment uses a new game engine and supports thousands of players in continuous large scale conflict.

What genre does the game belong to?

Sci-fi.

Planetside 2 developer/publisher:

The developer of this game was Sony Online Entertainment and was published by a division of Sony Corporation. 

When was it launched?

This game was released on November 20, 2012. It was the remake to Planetside which originally released in 2003.
What are the six different player classes in the game?

• The Infiltrator is a sniper class with special abilities of cloaking and hacking, and can use sniper rifles, scout rifles and submachine guns to deliver a devastating effect.
• The Light Assault class is a scout who uses carbines, submachine guns and shotguns. The Light Assault's special ability is Jump Jets, which allow them to fly through the air for a short period of time.
• The Combat Medic is a healing class. Their weapons include assault rifles, shotguns and submachine guns. The Combat Medic's special abilities allows them to heal and resurrect other players.
• The Engineer class has the special ability of repairing vehicles, turrets, and MAX Units. The engineer also has the ability to build anti-infantry and anti-vehicle turrets. The Engineer's weapons include carbines, shotguns submachine guns and battle rifles.
• The Heavy Assault class has light machine guns, submachine guns, shotguns, batte rifles, and also Rocket Launchers, which are effective at destroying enemy vehicles. They also have the special ability of shields to help them endure heavy fire.
• The MAX class has a mobile armored suit that allows them to take significant damage before dying. However, due to the suit they are also the slowest class. They have access to anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-air weapons. Max units cost resources to use.

What is the story or narrative to the game?

Planetside 2 is a re-imagining of Planetside, featuring the same world, factions and taking place at roughly the same time period. As in the previous game, it features territory control in an open-world, large battles featuring up to 2000 players per continent on foot or in land/air vehicles. The territory system differs greatly from that of the original, being more free-form and based on a hexagonal territory control system. SOE has been taking into account balance issues from the first game. As stated by creative director Matthew Higby, they reward combatants on lower population empires through mechanics such as proportionally increased advancement rates and resources to aid the balance of overall empire saturation on each server as much as possible without force-restricting players from being able to play with their friends.