Across the continents of Auraxis, thousands of players will come together in enormous battles to win control of territory and resources for their empire. With an extensive skill tree and a free-form class-based system, players will be able to customize their soldier, weapons and vehicles to match their play-style, or the needs of their squad, outfit or empire. Battles can last for days or weeks, so players will need to build real alliances and combat outfits to take on long-term strategic and tactical initiatives. With air, ground and seaborne combat, the battles are more intense than ever. 

Various character, vehicle and artillery customization features will be available to players constructing the perfect fighter for their favorite of the three empires: The Terran Republic (the conservative, authoritative nation aiming to reunite the clashing factions), The New Conglomerate (a liberated faction fighting to remaining free) or The Vanu Sovereignty (technophiles seeking to develop and exploit alien technology). Also, an in-depth and adaptive class system – with ranks, unlockable traits and skill sets – will give players complete control over their online warrior.

Videogame broadcasting platform Twitch announced its partnership with Sony Online Entertainment to integrate live broadcasting functionality into SOE’s upcoming games.

“With the Twitch community now in excess of 20 million gamers, live broadcasting has evolved from a niche novelty to an integral part of the gaming experience,” said Matthew DiPietro, VP Marketing of Twitch. “By partnering with Sony Online Entertainment to allow gamers to stream titles like PlanetSide 2 directly to Twitch at the click of a button, the community to will continue to grow since the biggest barrier to entry has been removed. There is no easier way to broadcast game play to the Web than this.”

Because of its giant fan base and the competitive nature of first-person shooter games, Planetside 2 is the perfect title to enable fans to live broadcast in a seamless, non-disruptive fashion, creating additional content.

“At SOE we believe very strongly in providing deeper social and emergent gameplay experiences,” said John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment. “With more than 21 million PlanetSide 2 minutes streamed to date, the ability for our players to broadcast their gameplay directly to Twitch will provide Twitch’s huge user base a chance to see the massive scale battles in PlanetSide 2 for themselves. We’ve gone out of our way to make the interface extremely easy to use and allow players to cast with just one-click.”

Scheduled to deploy in an external beta game update for players to begin testing this weekend, PlanetSide 2 marks the inaugural title in the Twitch and SOE partnership. Future relevant SOE titles will look to incorporate Twitch integration as well.

“We’re in discussions with the industry’s largest developers and publishers, so there’s no question that integrating turn-key live broadcasting into games is the future of this industry,” adds DiPietro. “With SOE being the first to illustrate the appeal of instant in-game streaming on Twitch, we couldn’t ask for a better partner to validate this movement.”