Planetside 2 excitement is hitting an all time high. There's 30 minutes of footage and a bunch of new screens here , which you should almost definitely watch. It's like a beautiful dream coming true. A massively multiplayer FPS dream with magnificent scale, day/night cycles, vehicles and jetpacks.
Creative director, Matt Higby is just as excited as the rest of us. "It always blows my mind that there aren't more MMO FPSs" he says, after showing a live demo at GDC.
Advancement in tech, better broadband and the recent success of the free-to-play model might have something to do with the genre's resurgence. Both Red 5 Studio's Firefall and, of course, Planetside 2 are incoming, and neither will require a subscription fee. I'd bet a pound that it that Blizzard's upcoming MMO, Project Titan , will also be a free-to-play FPS too.
Matt reckons more developers will embrace the genre in the wake of these games: "I think you're going to see a renaissance of the MMOFPS, similar to after EverQuest shipped and there was new generation of MMORPGs.” After all, Blizzard did hire WoW's lead game designer based on his stature in the EverQuest community. It's all relative.
“MMOFPSs will be the 2013 equivalent of MMORPGs in 2003.” concluded Matt, before offering some advice: “Everyone will be making them... and they're really difficult to make, so good luck."
