Planetside 2 Keeping Friendly Fire, Adding Offline Skill Training

Planetside 2, the massively multiplayer first-person shooter with persistent warfare between three competing factions, is shaping up to be a pleasantly hardcore experience, if a presentation by the team is anything to go by.

FPSGuru.com spoke to Sony Online Entertainment’s John Smedley and Matt Higby, who described Planetside 2‘s dynamic, gameplay-affecting warfare, multiple planets, skills that can be trained online or offline (not unlike EVE Online), as well as — and it warms the cockles of my gun’s heart to hear it — friendly fire.

For everything that Planetside 2 is doing to make it a more engaging experience (faster respawns, for instance), it’s sounding like they’re keeping elements that will ensure that teamwork and properly strategic thinking will remain fundamental to a winning faction’s playbook.

And if SoE bungles Planetside 2, there’s always Firefall.

Planetside 2 at SyndCon [FPSGuru.com]