Daybreak Game Company’s PlanetSide 2 hasn’t quite fallen by the wayside, but it has disappeared off the radar for many gamers following the switch from Sony Online Entertainment to Daybreak game Company. The name swap left some people a little dazed and confused, while others shuffled off into other multiplayer games. However, Daybreak is looking to bring back the gamers and doing so through the implementation of a new character class called Nanite System Operatives.
The new companions (or enemies, depending on how you look at it) are currently going through the public test server for beta testing and bug squashing before making the leap into the live test servers. [Correction: originally the article stated that the remote-infantry NSOs were bots, but Daybreak informed us that they are not bots but simply player-controlled units]. The developers further explained…
“These characters are not ‘AI bots’ – they’re a new faction that players can create a character within. So while they beep boop around the battlefield in a metallic husk, they’re not NPCs. Each one of them is driven by a player, same as any other character you’ll be shooting at.”
Over on the official PlanetSide 2 website, the developers revealed that the new robot classes within PlanetSide 2 are known as the Nanite Systems Operatives, or the NSOs.
The NSOs will accompany players into new zones where there are no human soldiers on the battlefield, or attempt to balance out the side who is lacking in human players. You can see a demonstration of how they work in the snippet below from the livestream.
I imagine this is Daybreak’s way of not only luring back in gamers to give Planetside 2 another go but also a way to balance out servers that are rapidly losing player populations.
For dedicated players there’s nothing more disheartening than seeing the field of battle whittled down to just a handful of soldiers and very little interactivity from other human players.
I don’t know if the NSOs will fix the problem, but it can cauterize the wound a little bit.
The NSOs look pretty cool, though, and should prove to be fun to fight in PlanetSide 2. They come in a number of class types, just like the standard soldiers. You can check out the full art portfolio from Ranulf Busby by visiting his Artstation page.
Additionally, you can join the public test server right now by getting your hand on the PTS client from over on the Daybreak forums.
(Thanks for the news tip Tenebrae)
