On May 20, 2003, Sony Online Entertainment launched PlanetSide, one of the earliest massively multiplayer first-person shooters. On July 1, 2016, Daybreak Games shut down PlanetSide for good. MMORPG.com’s Steven Messner was there to watch the sky come tumbling down.
I never spent much time with the original PlanetSide. Though it arrived at a time when I was greedily devouring everything massively multiplayer, I quickly learned that the first-person shooter part of the game wasn’t for me. All I can recall of my time playing was being blue and gold and not very good at whatever it was I was supposed to be doing.
The game had a dedicated player base until the devs stopped paying attention, somewhere between the launch of PlanetSide 2 in 2012 and the original game going free-to-play in 2014.
I do recall the game was best played with friends, which seems to be how Steven Messner spent the very last day of PlanetSide.