In less than a month, fans of PlanetSide Arena will have to bid a permanent farewell to the massively multiplayer sci-fi arena shooter. Released in early access on September 19, 2019, the free-to-play game will be shutting down its servers for good on January 10, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Daybreak Game Company's Executive Producer Andy Sites released a statement in which he explained that the reason for the abrupt shutdown is because “population levels make it impossible to sustain the gameplay experience we envisioned.” He assured fans that the development team remains committed to the PlanetSide universe and that this does not mark the end of the franchise. However, unlike some games that remain playable on private servers after official servers have shut down, PlanetSide Arena will not be accessible in any way after January 10.

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All DLC and hard currency purchase options have already been removed from Steam, but any virtual currency such as Battle Coins and Certs earned in-game can be used until the servers shut down. Players who have already made cash purchases, such as for DLC or virtual currency, will automatically receive a full refund to their Steam wallet shortly after the servers go offline.

Developed and published by Daybreak Game Company, PlanetSide Arena promised huge battles in massive arenas, focusing on traditional arena-style warfare with a futuristic twist. The early access version of the game offered three starting classes for players to choose from—assault, engineer, and medic—and released with two different 300-player battle royale modes, with each side composed of either solo players, 3-player teams, or 12-player squads. Players could battle it out with tanks, ATVs, jetpacks, hovercraft, and a decent array of weapons. The one-year development roadmap revealed plans for a Massive Clash mode that would support up to 1000 players, as well as additional classes, vehicles, weapons, a progression system, and even holiday events.

PlanetSide Arena is the third game in the franchise that began with PlanetSide in 2003 on PC. That massively multiplayer first-person shooter enjoyed massive success for well over a decade before its servers officially went offline in 2016. By then, however, PlanetSide 2 had already been live for nearly four years and had grown a large, dedicated player base.

PlanetSide Arena is currently available on PC and will be accessible until January 10, 2020.

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Source: GamesRadar