Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / PlanetSide

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/planetside2_7333.jpg

Honor, Justice, Duty
Terran Republic

Freedom Over Oppression
New Conglomerate

Technology Equals Might
Vanu Sovereignty

PlanetSide is an MMOFPS (Massively Multiplayer Online First-Person Shooter) developed by Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Game Company) and released in 2003. It is likely the second true MMOFPS ever to be released, after World War II Online (2001). The original Planetside shut down its final server on July 1st, 2016 after 13 years, ending in a final party around 'Stonehedge' on Ishundar as meteors rained from the sky, while its sequel remains active.

The plot, such as it is, involves future space-faring humans (under the banner of the totalitariannote  Terran Republic) stumbling through a wormhole onto a suspiciously Earth-like planet dubbed Auraxis, and becoming trapped there when the wormhole unexpectedly closes. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the Auraxians splintered into three factions, kicking off an all-out war for control over the bases established across the planet. Advanced nanotechnology conveniently left behind by the local Precursors (referred to as the Vanu) can both reconstruct soldiers after death and fabricate an endless supply of weapons, armor, and vehicles, ensuring a state of Forever War.

The factions are:

  • The Terran Republic (TR), or what's left of them on Auraxis are still loyal to The Empire: Their ultimate goal is to re-establish the wormhole and bring the planet back under Terran control. Their weapons and vehicles follow the More Dakka school of design, spewing bullets/shells at high rates of fire and with great accuracy but at relatively low damage per shot. They also possess the fastest vehicles. Website
  • The New Conglomerate (NC) are a coalition of rebels, mercenaries, and corporations who prefer democracy, freedom, human rights, and laissez-faire capitalism over the Republic's totalitarian regime or the Sovereignty's secretive technocracy. Their weapons are slow-firing but pack a high damage per shot, and their vehicles are big and ponderous but heavily-armored. Website
  • The Vanu Sovereignty (VS) is a cult of scientists and other intellectuals who embrace Vanu technology to a much greater extent than the other factions, hoping to eventually Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence as they believe the Vanu themselves did. Energy Weapons are their specialty, often with the unique ability to fire in standard or armor-piercing modes using the same ammo. Their vehicles are relatively fragile but have hover drives that allow them to strafe and scoot across bodies of water to attack from unexpected angles. Website
  • The Nanite Systems Operatives (NSO) are an army of remote-controlled Mecha-Mooks introduced exclusively for Planetside 2 on April 25, 2019, originally only playable by players with All-Access Memberships. Created by the Nanite Systems corporation, Nanite Systems Operatives don't have a territory of their own. Instead, when an NSO player joins a continent, they are automatically assigned to the faction with the lowest population, changing coloration to match. They can only use Nanite Systems weapons and vehicles (including a few exclusive to the NSOs), although they can take up gunner positions on empire-specific vehicles. They can join outfits, but they aren't tied to that outfit's faction, meaning they can end up fighting their ostensible comrades.

At its core, PlanetSide is a skill-oriented FPS with a "territory capture" style of gameplay, featuring a large variety of weapons, vehicles, and special abilities. However, it involves much more strategy and teamwork than a typical shooter and is noticeably slower-paced. One reason for this is the scale: There are ten contested continents, each of which is a single zone (no instancing!) about 200 square miles (321 Km) in size and capable of hosting up to 133 players per faction, making for a maximum of 500. To stay organized, players can form impromptu "squads" of up to 10 or "platoons" of up to 30, and the more permanent "outfits" (equivalent to guilds or clans) can be indefinitely large and have their own ranks and command hierarchy.

Shortly after PlanetSide's release and surprisingly good reception, SOE angled for a cash-in with the game's first and only expansion pack, Core Combat. It introduced several subterranean battle zones, filled with strange crystalline structures and hopelessly confusing networks of ziplines. Capturing cavern facilities would reward your faction with "modules" that could be installed into bases on the surface, providing access to new Ancient Tech weapons and vehicles as well as some other useful benefits. While the new toys were nice, the caverns themselves were universally derided as horribly-designed combat spaces, with the end result that they were (and still are) eerily deserted most of the time.

In 2004, Auraxis went through an ill-defined process known as The Bending, causing it to be inexplicably split into a collection of small planetoids, each containing a single continent from the original Auraxis (save one, which was destroyed and replaced with four new "Battle Islands"). Later that same year, the Aftershock update was released, adding faction-specific Humongous Mecha only obtainable by Core Combat owners, and then only after an arduous cavern-oriented "imprinting" process. Notably, said mechs were rather poorly-balanced at first, accelerating the decline in subscribers that began with Core Combat's release.

The purchasable product was subsequently renamed PlanetSide: Aftershock and now included Core Combat, making it no longer possible to buy the vanilla, expansion-less PlanetSide. In 2006, as part of a limited free-play "Reserves" promotion to renew interest in the game, any pre-Aftershock holdouts who still didn't have Core Combat were given it for free. This effectively removed Core Combat's status as an "expansion", making it just another part of the game.

In 2005, as player numbers continued to decline, SOE added in-game advertising to PlanetSide, without reducing or removing the existing $15-per-month subscription fee. Despite ostensibly doing this because the game could no longer survive on subscription income alone, the move caused many a head-scratch: As a Sci-Fi game set thousands of years in the future on a just-discovered planet completely cut off from society, PlanetSide was probably the worst possible candidate for in-game advertising, to begin with. However, the ads (which have since been removed) apparently did provide enough revenue to allow the dev team to continue fixing balance issues and adding the occasional new weapon or vehicle to the game.

In 2011, PlanetSide 2 was announced. It's more of a Continuity Reboot than a sequel, and effectively Retcons away everything from Core Combat onward: Auraxis remains in one piece, with no confusing caverns or Humongous Mecha whatsoever. Additionally, is free-to-play. PS2 significantly Retcons the previous game - the Terran Republic no longer kick puppies, the New Conglomerate isn't so nice anymore, and the Vanu Sovereignty are fanatical zealots.

PlanetSide 2 was launched for the PC on Nov 20, 2012. It was also ported onto the Play Station 4. It features much faster-paced combat than the original, typically compared to Battlefield 3. There are fewer continents and they are overall smaller, but are much more "dense", with more areas to contest compared to the original game. The do-it-yourself loadouts of yore (which lead to everyone carrying the exact same loadout) are replaced by a Character Class System - Medics, Engineers, Light Assault, Heavy Assault, Infiltrators and the MAX.

On May 21st, 2013, the developers awarded anyone who had ever played PlanetSide 1 or PlanetSide 2 a free 6 month subscription to the first game, in preparation for PlanetSide going free to play.

The sequel also features the "Player Studio", allowing players to create content (currently only hats, camouflage, and hood ornaments, though it's slowly being expanded) and sell it in-game for a profit (provided it's approved by SOE) ala Team Fortress 2's Mannconomy.


"All units planetside, tropes targeted near your position":

    open/close all folders 

    A through D 
  • Abnormal Ammo: The Vanu Sovereignty favors plasma weaponry powered by batteries, but what makes them abnormal is how the VS modifies this plasma. Certain ammo attachments can make the plasma projectile bigger, deal explosive damage, or fire like multiple shotgun pellets.
    • Nanite Systems has its fair share of unique ammo types. Their crossbows can shoot smoke, explosive, incendiary, and recon bolts. Their Thumper grenade launcher can fire incendiary, cryogenic, or disruptor grenades. The NS-66 Punisher can fire grenades that add or remove debuffs, launch players away from the blast, heal players, disable enemy equipment and HU Ds, and repair vehicles while modifying their max health. Havoc Missiles available to all ES Fs can damage vehicles and prevent repairs. Their NS-30 Tranquility shoots concussive smart-slugs that slow down enemy infantry when hit. Their 'Endeavor' line of weapons is powered by photons. Finally, their seasonal-themed weapons can shoot water, candy corn, snowballs, and flares. You can even throw deadly water balloons during the summer updates.
    • The TR's Dragoon Battle Rifle can shoot explosive rounds, while the Arbalest Assault Rifle's underbarrel grenade launcher fires incendiary grenades.
    • The NC's Vanquisher Assault Rifle has Disruptor Ammunition that strips away shield health, ability energy (unfortunately, no longer against enemy vehicles), and is effective against enemy deployables.
  • Achievement Mockery: Dasanfall leaderboards track every kill from every weapon from every player. Most players get around 1000 kills on a weapon before moving on. The "Industrial Agriculture" achievement is granted for getting a hundred thousand kills on one weapon, with the quip:
    "Congratulations to GylleBMF from Cobalt for putting our own lives into perspective with his feat."
  • Action Bomb: Aircraft abandoned mid-flight will fall to the ground and explode, killing anyone nearby. While many people don't bother thinking about this when using aircraft as a transport, some do aim for groups of enemy soldiers when ejecting.
    • NSO Defectors are equipped with a timed suicide bomb function.
  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Planetside 2 weapons have seemingly comparable or even less stopping power and projectile velocity than the ones we have in the modern day, especially the plasma and railgun weaponry of the VS and NC. If Planetside 2 was being realistic however, the VS and NC would have access to weapons that can 1-shot kill anything almost instantly. That wouldn't be very fun.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Bastion Fleet Carriers, available only to Outfits, are massive flying battleships that bristle with gun turrets and aircraft launch bays.
  • Alien Geometries:
    • The cavern facilities and the Ancient Tech weapons/vehicles.
    • Surface warpgates, though allegedly also created by the Vanu, don't share this aesthetic.
  • Alien Sky:
    • All of the continents have different suns and most of them have this odd, jet-stream nebula looking thing floating in the sky. Some continents (Amerish?) have massive gas giants or stars next to them, and the flavor text describes their eventual fall into the sun, or the atmosphere being burned away.
    • PlanetSide 2's skybox has an enormous gas giant with an Earth-like moon. Nighttime has red and blue nebula in the sky and, on Esamir, beautiful aurorae.
  • Alternative Calendar: The Vanu Sovereignty measure time in "After Wormhole".
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: In the first game, in addition to their color scheme, the Terran Republic's genocidal intolerance of "deviance" and their propaganda on the matter smacked very heavily of the Third Reich. This aspect was dropped in the second game's reboot, however.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes:
    • Ranking up to Battle Rank 7, 14, and 25 in PS1 gives you an alternate color scheme for your armor. BR 25 grants you the ability... to wear a different hat. In PS2, completing 5 Auraxium ranks in the "Exceptional" weapon directives (composed of flareguns and guns that cannot be acquired anymore) grants you the use of the pure black camouflage. Battle Rank rewards are mostly just new titles and rank decals for your player model.
    • Additionally, in PS2 completing the final tier of the "Objectives" directive (requiring a large number of base captures, control point caps, and objective destructions) gives you a pure white camouflage. There will also be a free helmet given to anyone who completes the master-tier Squad Leadership directive when it is released.
    • All of the infantry and vehicle directives give auraxium armor or lumi-fiber, respectively. They are completely cosmetic with no gameplay benefit.
  • Apocalypse How: The Bending even resulted in tens of thousands of asteroids raining down on every continent as the planet broke up, crushing any poor sod dumb enough to go outside.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: The NS-AM7 Archer anti-materiel rifle, specifically designed to kill MAX units and damage light vehicles at long range. Unlike most weapons, its damage type is unique, meaning that defenses against bullets and explosives are equally ineffective, and it can drop a MAX in a few hits, lightly damage light vehicles and aircraft, and chip away at heavy vehicles. Its main disadvantage? A very poor performance against relatively-lightly-armored infantry.
    • The NC has access to SABOT ammo on the Bishop and Vanquisher, which allows your bullets to penetrate into other enemies at the cost of fire rate.
    • The NC's GODSAW also has an alternate firemode that can deal damage to all vehicles and Bastion hardpoints, but is ineffective against infantry.
    • The Bastion's Skylance battery mode allows you to fire rounds that can penetrate through multiple targets and deal increased damage.
    • The Aphelion VEX-4 can penetrate two targets and deal a massive burst of damage if you time your bursts correctly.
  • Ascended Meme: One of the developers, David "Malorn" Bennett, somehow developed a personal meme amongst the community in the form of "buff the CARV", an oft-repeated suggestion referring to the T9 CARV light machine gun that TR heavies start with. He left SOE in October 2014, but not before slipping a small change into the September update: A reduction in the T9 CARV's horizontal recoil.
  • Attack Its Weak Point:
    • Tanks in PS2 are immune to small arms fire and take reduced damage from larger weapons depending on whether the front, top, or side is hit. Attacks to the rear and underside of the vehicle do additional damage instead.
    • This is the only way to damage Bastion Fleet Carriers. Each Bastion has eight weak points on its hull; shooting anywhere else does no damage.
  • Awesome Personnel Carrier:
    • The Sunderer vehicles, massive trucks bristling with guns, equipped with a rechargeable EMP blast, and capable of transporting heavy armor. They also have a horn that sounds like an eighteen-wheeler as they crash straight through your base's shielding.
    • The lightweight Deliverer family of APCs are close. While they lack the ridiculous armor, EMP blast, and MAX slots of the Sunderer vehicles, they have higher mobility and are amphibious (an ability otherwise found only on the VS-exclusive hover vehicles and hard-to-obtain Ancient Tech vehicles).
    • The sequel's Sunderer has more hit points than a tank and doesn't have the cripplingly weak rear armor. Even when fighting front to front, a Sunderer with only one gunner on the default heavy machinegun has a good chance of winning a one on one fight with the Lightning light tank—both gunners, and it'll win against a Main Battle Tank that doesn't have a secondary gunner.
    • Galaxies are the airborne version of this, with even more guns than a Sunderer (though they don't overlap their radius a lot) and more health to boot. They are slower than other aircraft however and a giant target for any anti-air defenses.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Scorpion Special Assault missile/grenade/flak launcher thing, which fires a missile which explodes in midair and showers the area below it in deadly shrapnel. The weapon requires players to press the right mouse to lock a range for missile detonation, but the missile will explode at that range you set, not at the point you set - meaning if you lock the range at a hill below you, then aim towards the horizon (so the shrapnel has enough dispersion), the missile will gracefully sail towards the enemy, and then blow up in midair before it reaches the enemy because the hypotenuse of your range-lock aim is longer than the horizontal aim. You need trigonometry to use this weapon at long range.
  • Badass Boast:
    • The unofficial "Terran speech" trailer is a glorious 3 minute boast.
      We came here in peace, with a dream of exploration. Through the strength and unity of the Republic, we reached and grasped the stars themselves... For the betterment of humanity, we have achieved mighty deeds. We have become like unto gods in our power and reach. Never before has humanity attained such glory, and it is all due to the loyalty of the Terran people. But there are those who think they have a better way... I stand before you and I say NO MORE. Today we stand! Today we fight! Today we show these blights upon humanity what they have feared in their dark hearts all along. The Terran Republic will never stop, the Terran Republic will never surrender! We will fight and die until every single one of them is wiped from the face of Auraxis forever!... LOYALTY UNTIL DEATH!
      Tonight's operation will drive us deep into enemy territory. There may be times when we have to stand alone against the entire strength of an empire pushing us back. We may be outnumbered, outgunned and operating under nothing but our will to succeed. Make no mistake, I have every confidence in our ability to stand as a fighting force to be reckoned with, odds be damned! We demonstrated that enough - to ourselves and not the hapless fodder we gunned down in our path. [..] There are many who consider the New Conglomerate to be nothing but a rag-tag group of rebels, traitors, terrorists. Well, I say tonight we give them a good reason to be terrified of us.
    • From the New Conglomerate faction trailer, the short but sweet "We don't take any prisoners and we don't take any sh*t."
  • Beam Spam: Vanu Sovereignty infantry are basically walking laser raves. Though any large battle will look like this from a distance due to Every Bullet is a Tracer, nothing is quite as disorienting for the first time as approaching a VS base under cover of dark, suddenly to find thousands of strobing purple and cyan neon-like rays blasting at you from every doorway, window, and catwalk, leading to a rain of brightly glowing multicolored sparks as bits of the scenery vaporize around you.
  • Becoming the Mask: In the backstory the NC changes over time from simply using Human rights as a recruiting tool and really just fighting for a monopoly, to genuinely fighting for everyone's rights against the autocratic Terran Republic.
  • Big Badass Battle Sequence: PS2 not just makes this possible, but also nigh inevitable if there are enough players in the same server/continent. The game even broke a world record for having 1,158 people fighting across the same server all at once.
  • Big Badass Rig: The Sunderer APC.
  • BFG:
    • Anything mounted on a BFR would probably qualify, but if you're talking about man-portable weaponry, the Biggest and Frackingest of them all is the New Conglomerate's heavy assault weapon, the Jackhammer. It's an enormous triple-barreled shotgun with a secondary mode that fires all three barrels at once; catch one of those in close quarters, and they'll be scraping you off the wall with a spatula.
    • The Terran Republic's Mini Chain Gun is... well, you guess. And the Vanu Sovereignty's Lasher closely resembles Quake III's BFG.
    • The 150mm cannon on the New Conglomerate's Vanguard tank can one-shot many lightly-armored vehicles. Hitting the ground anywhere near infantry will often insta-gib them, or at least leave them badly hurting.
    • The Ancient Tech Flail artillery platform can fling devastating energy projectiles at targets half a kilometer away, which will definitely insta-gib any infantry in their considerable blast radius.
    • The Bolt Driver. It's basically a plain old sniper rifle that shoots bullets that are at least an inch diameter, and 8 inches long.
    • The MAX weapons are huge, and can be held on one hand.
    • The Colossus has a mammoth cannon that's as huge and powerful as it sounds. Supercharging it by deploying or activating a special mode makes it far more deadly.
  • BFS: The Black Ops' katana.
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • The Suppressor SMG. While it lacks the high-capacity magazines, stopping power, and flair of the empire-specific assault rifles, it's absurdly accurate, very compact, very effective at killing MAXes, can be used by anyone regardless of certifications, and it uses the most common ammo in the game.
    • All basic light infantry starting rifles. Decent reload time, decent damage, decent accuracy.
    • Anti-air guns. Even when they are fully upgraded, it is difficult to shoot down a decently experienced enemy pilot, so don't expect to have many kills. However, air superiority is crucial, and even distracting and deterring enemy aircraft helps your faction a lot, so someone has to do it.
    • Sunderer and Galaxy support are hardly exciting, but crucial in capturing enemy bases.
  • Black Box: Ancient Vanu technology. Not even the Vanu Sovereignty is entirely sure how it works.
  • Bright Is Not Good: The New Conglomerate has bright yellow and blue armor, and the Vanu Sovereignty has purple and teal armor. But while the former is a gray faction in both games, the latter operates entirely on Blue-and-Orange Morality.
  • Bubblegloop Swamp: Hossin is full of waterlogged swamps with massive trees. The Extinction battle island was basically the same, but smaller and a bitch to navigate.
  • Call-Back: Even though by PlanetSide 2 each empire has its own set of taunts, they're all reported in chat spam using the classic PlanetSide 1 taunt of "Your best is my worst!"
  • Canon Welding: SOE has claimed/joked that their upcoming Zombie Apocalypse game H 1 Z 1 takes place in the same universe as PS2, albeit in its distant past. Nanite Systems exists in both games.
  • Car Fu:
    • In the early days of PS1, heavy vehicles were frighteningly effective at mowing down entire squads of infantry; this was especially popular in the Vanu Sovereignty's strafe-capable hover-tank, the Magrider. In PS2, vehicles are not slowed down by running over infantry, so it's easy to plow through dozens of troopers and kill them all without even firing the main guns. In fact, this is even rewarded with a "Roadkill Bonus". The Sunderer is horrifyingly effective at running over vehicles; a Sunderer moving at full throttle has enough inertia to send tanks flying in a head-on collision, and splatter Harassers across the terrain.
    • Can also be done with aircraft, the massive Galaxy being obviously best suited for it.
    • Because the Magrider can move in any direction horizontally (unlike Lightnings and TR and NC heavy tanks), they've become infamous for their tendency to accidentally squish friendly Vanu Engineers who are hugging close to the Magrider to repair it and can't get out of the way when the pilot starts trying to evade incoming fire. This has led to jokes about the Magrider being powered by the souls of the Vanu Engineers it's murdered.
    • The Flash combines low price, small size, high speed, and maneuverability, and for a somewhat pricy cert investment it can add a cloaking device. Put together, and you have a stealthy, cheap, near-invisible roadkilling machine that's small enough to get up the stairs of bases and run over entire squads of soldiers on narrow walkways. The cloak and speed also mean that the startled survivors of a stealth-Flash roadkill spree are unlikely to be able to track it and retaliate before it gets too far away to see.
  • Cargo Cult: In PS2, the Vanu Sovereignty regard the aliens they named themselves after with Precursor-like reverence, and actually worship the technology they left behind. There are a few implications that the artifacts might be brainwashing them and driving them to spread their creed to the other humans on Auraxis.
  • Chainsaw Good: The Terran Republic in both games has the Chain Blade, a knife with a built-in chainsaw blade. In the second game, they have the Ripper Power Knife, which is a mini chainsaw with buzzing sounds meant for cutting men to shreds.
  • Combat Medic:
    • One of the most common certifications. The basic Medic certification allows you to heal yourself and teammates, while the Advanced Medic certification allows you to revive dead soldiers on the spot and speeds up your healing rate.
    • The Combat Medic returns as a class in the sequel, armed with a powerful assault rifle and able to revive dead soldiers and heal wounded ones, as well as project a healing aura around their bodies. It can also wield carbines and a battle rifle secondary with the right perks for added adaptability.
  • Commissar Cap: Terran Republic players in PS2 can buy a high-brimmed commissar cap (complete with goggles) and a golden eagle. As a bonus, Terran players unlock the "Commissar" title at rank 76.
  • Color-Coded Armies:
    • Yellow/blue for the NC, red/black for the TR, purple/teal for the VS, and black/green for the Black Ops. All armor and vehicles are color-coded, and the first color of each of these pairs is also used for that faction's tracers.
    • Inexplicably, jacking a vehicle from an opposing faction will instantly flip its paint job to reflect the new owner. Though since the game features Friendly Fire, the consequences of not doing so could be disastrousnote .
    • Nanite Systems Operatives are primarily white, but they gain color-coded accents corresponding to their assigned army: red for the Terran Republic, blue for the New Conglomerate, or teal for the Vanu Sovereignty.
  • Cool Bike: The Flash ATV. Cheapest way to get around without having to redeploy, can fit a rocket booster or cloaking device, carry a machine gun/shotgun/grenade launcher, and the dude on the back can use his guns.
  • Cool Helmet: PS2 is rife with cool helmets and nice hats, such as the TR stormtrooper-esque "Dreadnaught" helmet. TR helmets generally have red Glowing Mechanical Eyes goggles or wide faceplates, gas masks, and are built with a sleek but practical aesthetic. NC helmets have hard edges (the NC do not believe in "the curve") and generally appear more robotic, with many helmets lacking a faceplate. VS go off the deep end in terms of complexity, with sharply creased lines making many of their helmets look like they're wearing a crustacean for a hat. The most popular VS helmet, Avalon, also incorporates a hood. The Player Studio marketplace allows players to design their own Cool Helmets (and other cosmetics) and sell them for real money after they get artistic approval from the developers.
  • Cool Plane: The most obvious would be the Galaxy Gunship. With the armor and armaments of several tanks, it's a flying horror for anyone who's standing on the ground.
  • Crew of One:
    • Some vehicles are like this, but most require both a driver and one or more gunners to operate effectively. Changing positions can only be done while a vehicle is stopped/landed and requires you to exit the vehicle and enter it through another door or hatch, so you can't pull this trope with a vehicle that wasn't designed for it.
    • PS2 drops the old system for a system much like the Battlefield series. Tanks have their main gun controlled by the driver, but the weapon on top of the battle tank is controlled by a second player. Players can swap between positions while in the vehicle, and can instantly enter a vehicle, but there is a delay between entering/exiting a vehicle or changing positions. Sunderers, Galaxies, Liberators, Harassers and Valkyrie all require gunners for maximum firepower - only the Liberator has a pilot-controlled gun.
  • Crouch and Prone: Crouching gives you all of the listed benefits. Some weapons (such as sniper rifles and the VS anti-vehicle laser) require the player to crouch because of their otherwise poor accuracy.
    • Crouching for the sake of accuracy is still encouraged in the sequel, but skilled players crouch-spam in the middle of a firefight to try and dodge shots while gaining accuracy.
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The Terran Republic's and New Conglomerate's reasons for opposing the Vanu Sovereignty; they fear that the Sovereignty wants to strip away their humanity in the name of "enlightenment".
  • Cyber Punk Is Techno: The Vanu Sovereignty in PS2 drops their otherworldly music from PS1 in favor of Daft Punk-esque techno.
  • Darker and Edgier: The art style of PlanetSide 2 is much more gritty and realistic (in a modern war sort of sense) for the Terran and Conglomerate tech. The Vanu Sovereignty were originally as bright and flashy as ever, with the justification that everything they produce is bleeding edge new, and visually designed to remind you of just how newfangled it is. The Conglomerate, who were essentially the "good guys" of the first game, are much more gray. Later on in the game's life, the color scheme for Vanu Sovereignty foot soldiers was made much darker overall with less flamboyant colors, making the trope apply even more.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Republic in PS2. While they retain their sinister red gas masked infantry, they are no longer an oppressive totalitarian regime but an actual real republic that have been forced into drastic measures by circumstances.
  • Dead Character Walking: Has a wide variety of glitches that can cause dead characters to continue fighting. On rare occasions, players who have been using their Magic Tool on a friendly vehicle can continue to repair it even past its destruction, which will "revive" the vehicle albeit with no turret. An animation glitch can cause dead players who have been revived by a medic to slide around the ground as a corpse while shooting at enemies.
  • Death from Above: Let's count:
  • Deployable Cover: Engineers in Planetside 2 can deploy cover for two soldiers, affectionately nicknamed "baby gates" for their waist-high dimensions and common use to block doorways.
  • Drunk with Power: The Terran Republic on Auraxis went from a utopian democracy to an autocratic junta as a result of their leadership getting used to the authority they had on the transport ships.
  • Diegetic Interface: Non-treaded vehicles in PlanetSide 2 have most of their status (speed, health, etc) listed on actual 3D displays in the cockpit. Tanks lack the displays and instead use a standard HUD, though each tank has a unique themed HUD.
  • Diagonal Speed Boost: The Magrider can move faster by engaging both the standard throttle and the strafe, then rotating the tank - the speed boost allows the otherwise slow tank to keep up with a Prowler in PS2. All aircraft in PS2 move faster when the nose is tilted down (or sideways) and the vertical lift thruster is engaged.
  • Dilating Door: Ancient Vanu facilities in the caverns feature large, round doors which vanish when approached, then re-materialize a few seconds later. Human facilities feature the standard Sci-Fi doors which split along their center and slide to the sides. Tech Plant vehicle bay doors slide into the ground. PlanetSide 2 lacks any doors (except in the tutorial), using force fields instead.
  • Do-Anything Soldier:
    • Averted. A soldier can only use things he's certified in. Certifications are purchased with points earned by leveling up on the battlefield (though unlike many MMOGs, points can be redistributed with relative ease, with only a six-hour timer between decertifications). Maximum-leveled soldiers are granted all certifications but still can't fulfill any role in one moment because of the inventory restrictions on the various armor types.
    • PS2 allows all soldiers the use of any vehicle or class, but different infantry/vehicle weapons, character improvements (such as improved repair speed), and alternate abilities require you to spend certification points. You can specialize in your preferred vehicle role, but you're not completely barred from anything else.
  • Do Not Run with a Gun: Holding a weapon significantly reduces the player's mobility, so you have to holster it when traveling long distances. Also, forfeiting mobility by taking a crouching stance will greatly increase weapon accuracy, so don't even think about using some weapons while moving or standing! In PS2, one cannot holster their weapon, but the "Sprint" button will cause you to run and lower their weapon. Once the player stops running, it takes a couple of moments for accuracy to recover to normal.
  • Drop Pod: One of several ways for players to enter the battlefield. The Steel Rain War Asset can drop an entire squad or platoon on a single point.
  • Dual Mode Unit:
    • The Terran Republic's Prowler main battle tank in PS2 is moderately armored, fast, and kitted out with a pair of 120mm cannons. Its primarily "Utility" ability is Anchored Mode, which causes its wheels to deploy pistons into the ground, locking it in place, and ramping up its dakka potential to a whole new level—when maxed out, Anchored Mode increases the Prowler's rate of fire by 48%, reduces reload time by 48% and its projectile velocity is increased to 30%, allowing it to blast vehicles from a kilometer out with its rapid-fire Armor-Piercing cannon or swat aircraft out of the sky when parked on a hill, or murder all infantry within half a mile when kitted out with the High Explosive cannons. The TR's MAX armor in both games has Lockdown, which like the tank, anchors the MAX into the ground with thigh-mounted pitons, while increasing its rate of fire and reload speed. In the original game, the MAX was designed around Lockdown—it had terrible DPS unless it was locked down, but became pin-point accurate and could out-DPS every other MAX when it was locked down. PS2's Lockdown is less powerful in exchange for the MAX being more useful when not locked down.
    • The Sunderer also has to deploy similarly to become a spawn point, as well as proving an infantry terminal. Since switching takes a few seconds, this makes it much more vulnerable, especially against enemy infantry dropping C4 on it.
  • Dystopia: The Terran Republic in PS1 was an authoritarian, USSR-esque dystopia, where everyone's movements and constantly tracked and rebellion or unrest dealt with via weaponry. In PS2, the Terran Republic is mostly benevolent, but on the fleet heading to Auraxis and on Auraxis itself, the Terran authorities went full dystopia, first enacting martial law and curfews, then banning non-family groups of 3 people or more and arresting New Conglomerate leadership arbitrarily without trial.

    E through H 
  • Early Game Hell: Planetside 2 has this in spades, largely because the tutorials are useless and new players are thrown into the fray with no idea on what to do. The Koltyr newbie continent was a massively misguided attempt to rectify this, by keeping the sub-Battle Rank 15 players on a separate miniature continent to learn the game together. In practice, the newbies were stuck on Koltyr with no idea what to do because veteran players weren't around to provide guidance, and the continent was full of hackers and stat padders that made new alts to farm free newbie kills.
    • Eventually, Koltyr was reworked into an instanced continent to contain population overflow during excessively busy periods and provide a focused space during excessively slow periods.
  • Eldritch Location: The Caverns are full of giant crystals composed of growing nanites.
  • EMP: Generated by jammer grenades and certain vehicles.
    • Detonate minefields and incapacitate sentry guns. In the second game, they can also disable other deployable objects like motion sensors, shield regenerator fields, and the like.
    • Disable implants.
    • Disable vehicles' weapons and slow them down. Tank drivers fear the lone soldier in agile armor chucking jammer grenades.
    • Totally ruin a BFR pilot's day.
  • Elite Army: The Black Ops in the original. There were only a few of them, the faction was invite-only, their soldiers had 1000 hp (10x more than regular players) and could use any weapon or vehicle in the game.
    • Sigma Squad, the NOMADS, Havoc, Darkstar, Spartan, AVA, Centurion, and other armor sets are named after the special forces components of each faction. Lore on them is minimal however, and they only exist in cosmetic form via armor and helmets.
  • The Empire: The Terran Republic in PS1 was an oppressive, totalitarian oligarchy that has kept peace on Earth for a thousand years with an iron fist.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: The days leading up to The Bending were increasingly filled with random earthquakes and giant meteors raining from the skies, doing Massive Damage to any player or vehicle unfortunate enough to be smashed beneath one. In the final moments, the meteors grew so frequent that one could hardly take two steps outside without being pancaked.
  • Enemy Exchange Program: In PS1, capturing both of an empire's home continents allowed your empire to build their vehicles.
    • As of the Shattered Warpgate update, it's possible to reclaim vehicles on Esamir regardless of the faction. For example, NC soldiers can drive Prowlers and VS soldiers can drive Vanguards. Each reclaimed tank will have a preset loadout.
  • Enemy Mine: It's not unheard of for 2 factions to team up against a dominant one who's steamrolling a continent. This also happens in outfit wars when 2 outfits work together to beat a highly-skilled outfit, to the outrage of many players and the victims of this double-team.
  • Energy Weapon:
    • The Vanu Sovereignty's arsenal. Expect lots of "PEW PEW PEW" when they're around. Ancient Tech weapons take it a little too far.
    • The Vanu Sovereignty's Lancer, a shoulder-mounted laser cannon, is probably the most feared anti-tank weapon in the game, due to its pinpoint accuracy and zero travel time (as compared to projectile weapons). Can only be topped by their BFR-mounted Continuous Laser that slices through infantry with ease.
  • The Engineer: Engineering is a common certification, especially among higher-leveled players with cert points to spare. Engineers can repair soldiers' armor and vehicles with basic certification. Further certifications (Combat Engineer) allow the engineer to place high explosive mines, automated turrets, sensors, and manually detonated explosives. Further certifications past Combat Engineering allow the engineers to place tank traps, large manually operated turrets, stealth field generators, upgrade base Phalanx turrets with anti-tank 100mm high explosive cannons or anti-air flak cannons, and upgrade stealth field generators to restore ammo.
    • In the second game, the Engineer is one of the classes. They can repair friendly vehicles, base defenses, and MAX units, deploy manned turrets to defend key areas, and drop ammo packs to resupply infantry. With a bit of certification, they can even deploy powerful anti-tank mines capable of making short work of even the Sunderer. These are invariably stuck to right in front of an enemy vehicle spawner.
  • Evil All Along: Representative Foster was going to send you to your death in chapter 2 of the campaign, only being saved by Archivist Dolan. When you try to bring Foster to task later on, he is conveniently absent.
  • Everybody Hates Mathematics:
    • In-game. The Scorpion weapon system in PlanetSide 1 requires trigonometry to even deal damage (aside from blind luck), and as such, it's almost totally ignored. Flail artillery is similar, since its target painter doesn't account for elevation and simply aiming at the marker won't do.
    • If you manage to lock onto a point at the same distance as your target, and choose the correct elevation, you'll get a weapon capable of one-shotting enemies behind cover.
    • Since the default rocket launchers don't lock on in PS2, you're either going to rely on projectile motion mathematics, or guess when that enemy tank will be at the spot where your rocket hits. Later on rectified by making the Annihilator a baseline alternative, which only does lock-on.
  • Every Bullet is a Tracer: Almost all weapons have tracers color-coded per faction. Vanu Sovereignty tracers are blue (purple for their lasers), New Conglomerate tracers are yellow, and Terran Republic tracers are red. Some weapons like the anti-tank weaponry just have smoke trails, and the 10mm revolvers have an extremely fast-moving bullet that's almost impossible to see.
  • Everything Fades: Items and ownerless vehicles that are left hanging around for a while are "deconstructed" by the Auraxian nanomachines, collapsing into a glowing puddle that quickly fades away. This also happens to the "loot backpacks" dropped by dead soldiers, so you have to be quick if you want to steal some extra ammo.
  • Expy: The various faction-unique voicepacks in Planetside 2 are names-filed-off replicas of famous characters.
  • Fascists' Bed Time: The isolated remnant of the Terran Republic in PS2 creates a curfew on the colonization ships and on Auraxis itself, to try and curb the growing rebellion.
  • The Federation: The Terran Republic in PS2 is much Lighter and Softer than the original game, instead being more of a socialistic, fairly free society. However, the isolated Auraxis remnant goes Drunk with Power after instigating martial law en-route to Auraxis under the command of Lt. Commander Brent Waterson.
  • Fighting for a Homeland: The New Conglomerate.
  • Five-Man Band: Loosely speaking...
  • Follow the Leader: The gunplay in PlanetSide 2 is very similar to Battlefield 3, although granted it is vastly superior to the gunplay in the first PlanetSide. It also does vehicle suspension similar to Battlefield 3in the grim darkness of the far future, there is no vehicle suspension: every vehicle handles (aside from the Sunderer, which has 1950s Cadillac suspension) like the wheels are welded onto the bodywork, creating a bone-shattering ride which makes driver-mounted weapons on the Flash utterly pointless when driving faster than 15 km/h. Even tanks suffer from it, especially the Prowler due its shape; it's very wide and very short, allowing it to smash into basically every bump on the road.
  • Forever War: The whole premise of the game. Practical immortality and unlimited weaponry will do that.
  • For Science!: Pretty much the Vanu Sovereignty's entire reason for fighting.
  • Fragile Speedster:
    • The Vanu Sovereignty hover vehicles, which sacrifice armor for amphibious and strafing capabilities. The Agile armor for infantry also follows this: It allows faster running than the Reinforced armor, but has less inventory space and fewer armor points.
    • In 2 following a few updates ESFs became these due the power and increased prevailance of flak and G2A missiles, although a good pilot can evade these long enough to take out an MBT with rocketpods.
  • Freemium:
    • The "Reserves" program in PS1 ran for a year. Anyone could register for an account and play the game, but they were restricted to Battle Rank 6 and Command Rank 1, which severely limited what they could do on each character—forcing them into Crippling Overspecialization or making them a Master of None. Battle Frame Robotics was totally out of reach for Reserve players.
    • PS2 is totally free to play, but "Members" get $5.00 worth of Station Cash per month, up to 50% XP and resources boost, 4x passive cert gain (2 certs per hour rather than one every other hour), earlier access to some cosmetic items and higher priority in server/continent queues, for down from $14.99 a month. Membership scales with time subscribed—a 1 month member only gets a 10% XP boost, while the 6 month Auraxium member gets the full 50% XP boost.
  • Free Look Button: PS2 allows aircraft to freelook when holding down the middle mouse button, which locks them from using pitch and roll controls. The Liberator gunship's pilot had an autocannon that could be aimed by freelook during the beta, though it was removed when Liberators were winning one-on-one fights with fighters.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • Besides the BFR and the MAX, there's the worker ANT, the all-in-one engineer tool ACE, BANK, TRAP and probably a few more.
    • Around Update 13, Sony introduced a concerted effort to improve overall game performance speed. The name of this initiative? Operation: Make Faster Game (O:MFG).
    • The Mini Chaingun has the BRRT (Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle), previously called the FART (Fast Action Refire Trigger)—which speeds up the MCG's rate of fire while imitating the noise the MCG makes with its name.
  • Future Copter: All air vehicles are VTOL for the sake of user-friendliness, from the one-man Wasp interceptor to the humongous Galaxy and Lodestar dropships, and even more terrifying Galaxy Gunship.
  • Future Spandex: The futuristic Vanu Sovereignty infantry in PS2 all wear spandex, with armor panels on their upper body. It is body-tight regardless of gender.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: Planetside 2's "hitching" bug. The longer you play a game, the more it will begin to pause and jitter as if it was short of RAM. Bizarrely, it sometimes hitches more after a computer upgrade. Depending on the users computer, hitching can be a constant occurrence after as little as 30 minutes of gameplay, and it gets progressively worse until the game is rendered unplayable until you restart it.
  • Game Mod: The Recursion Stat Tracker runs in the background and adds a Halo-style announcer for when you get killstreaks or get Recursion-specific achievements.
  • Gas Mask Mooks: Terran Republic REXO armor uses a gas mask helmet in PlanetSide 1. In PlanetSide 2, the Composite Helmet cosmetic armor for Terran players gives them a sharply sloping gas mask that covers all of their face below their goggles. The Dreadnought helmet gives them a full-on gas mask reminiscent of a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet.
  • Gaming Clan: A core conceit of gameplay, called "Outfits" in-game. Outfits can call in special support like Drop Pods that can deploy entire platoons to a single location, Orbital Strikes, and Bastion Fleet Carriers. Outfits can also fight on Desolation, an off-planet map designed specifically for tournament play.
  • Gatling Good:
    • The Terran Republic's Mini-Chaingun lives off this; it's a handheld bullet spammer. In PS2, several of the Terran Republic's unique vehicle weapons are Gatling guns, with the Mini-Chaingun returning as an empire-specific heavy weapon. The Mosquito light aircraft can use two different types of rotary cannons for a primary nosegun, and players can also mount a large Vulcan minigun as a secondary weapon on Prowler heavy tanks.
    • In PS2 the Terran Republic's Vulcan minigun turret can be mounted on Harasser transports, the Liberator has a quad Gatling gun turret available as its standard belly weapon, and the Liberator can also equip a nose-mounted Gatling gun that somehow fires two bullets at once.
  • General Ripper: In-game. Most Command Rank 5 players will happily call down an orbital strike on their own faction's army just to kill that one enemy cloaker who killed him.
  • Generation Ships: The Terran Republic launched several generation ships before they discovered how to force wormholes to stay open; however, contact was eventually lost and the ships were lost to Earth, presumably destroyed.
  • Glass Cannon:
    • The empire-specific fighters (ESFs) in 2. They have the highest speed of any vehicles in the game and enough potential firepower to pose a serious threat to ground and air targets alike. They also have less health than any other vehicle save the Flash ATV, and unlike most are vulnerable to small arms fire. A well-aimed tank shell or unguided rocket can swat a fighter instantly.
    • Infiltrators are an infantry variant. Their sniper rifles do massive damage, especially on a headshot, and their submachineguns are lethal in close quarters. Just don't expect to be able to take return fire, as they have the lowest health of any of the infantry classes.
    • Engineer AP turrets. They fire powerful guided missiles, but without the shield of the regular turret the operator is wide open for snipers.
    • Zealot Overdrive Engine. The Vanu MAX's signature ability, while activated, gives the operator increased damage output and movement speed at the cost of taking more damage and being illuminated with a pink and teal mesh.
  • Glowing Mechanical Eyes: The Terran MAX in PS2 gets glowing red eyes on almost all of its helmets. The majority of TR (non-MAX) helmets get on the doominess as well.
  • Gone Horribly Right: An update to PS2 buffed Liberator armor and resistances to make it more viable. The buffs ended up being so ridiculous that the game ended up having "sky-gods" roaming the continents alone in Liberators effectively unkillable; as the only "counters" to Liberators were slow and weak (Skyguards/Burster MAXes) or could be easily mowed down by the Liberator's bottom gun (Fighters). Come a few months later, the nerf-bat came down hard on the Lib.
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: The New Conglomerate, the Terran Republic, and the Vanu Sovereignty respectively.
  • Goomba Stomp:
    • Drop pods in PS2 can one-hit-kill infantry and MAX suits by landing on them. They're also capable of crushing smaller airborne aircraft - fighters are instagibbed, while Liberators can generally survive (although they'll probably tip over and crash aftwards). Galaxies can shrug off the damage.
    • Galaxies can also do this to instagib smaller land vehicles like Harassers, and their size allows them to literally bounce off and go back to flying.
  • Grenade Launcher:
    • The Thumper grenade launcher, which uses a rotating cylinder drum, and can be loaded with a variety of grenade types (fragmentation, plasma, jammer, and most recently cryogenic grenades that slow down players and their rates of fire).
    • In the sequel, the Prowler tank can mount a rapid-firing belt-fed grenade launcher as a secondary weapon, and the Galaxy dropship, the Liberator's tail gun, and the Sunderer can be fitted with slower versions for taking out infantry. The Flash ATV and Harasser buggy can mount a forward-facing one, and a handful of PS2's guns have the option to mount an underbarrel grenade launcher loaded with explosives or smoke.
    • NSO Defector robots carry a grenade launcher as their primary weapon.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: As opposed to the first game, none of the factions in PlanetSide 2 are particularly good or evil.
    • The Terran Republic saved humanity from a generation of total warfare, climatic and environmental destruction, and likely extinction to create a mixed-economy socialist utopia on Earth, maintaining this peace for a thousand years and colonizing the stars at the cost of personal freedom. On the fleet to Auraxis, the Republican government became increasingly authoritarian and martial in hopes of curbing insurrectionary violence among the stranded colonists; a process that could be seen as either sensible or reactionary, depending on your perspective.
    • The New Conglomerate was a MegaCorp founded by industry leaders to lobby against increasingly draconian regulations, and was later joined by libertarians and others who see the Terran Republic and its culture of planetary/species one-party-statehood as the irrelevant premodern legacy of a world that no longer needs to be saved; a view which might be described as modern and radical or a naïve rehash of mistaken old ideologies. Regardless of what your opinion is, the fact remains that the NC are idealistic but essentially unorganized.
    • The Vanu Sovereignty really step up their Machine Worship act, wanting to further mankind's technological understanding possibly at the cost of what makes them human. They obsess over the alien technology and what humanity could seek to become through reverse engineering it, a prospect that is either horrifying or visionary, depending on perspective. Some of them even claim to have experienced quasi-mystical, transcendental, or otherwise life-altering states of consciousness associated with physically touching certain artifacts, with Vanu being the name they give to these altered states of consciousness. Depending on who you ask, this is possible evidence of some poorly understood interaction between the technology and the human nervous system or plain old craziness.
  • Green Hill Zone: Forseral, Amerish, Ascension, Cyssor, and parts of Hossin.
  • Guide Dang It!: The game tutorial informs you that tanks receive damage based on where they're hit, with their armor being thickest at the front and weakest in the back. The tutorial forgets to add "relative to the shooter" to the tip, as the damage resistance is calculated around the angle of the attacker rather than the impact point. It means that aiming for specific spots on the enemy tank is useless unless you're properly flanking; your attack from the side that hits the turret's rear does normal damage, while you can hit the tip of the tank turret from behind for massive damage.
  • Gun Accessories: Like Battlefield 3, PlanetSide 2 has a large amount of customization for your weapons. Laser sights, alternate foregrips, silencers, compensators, flash suppressors, bigger magazines, and alternate sights are available on many weapons. Some weapons can take alternate ammo types, such as shotguns being able to use slug or buckshot ammo, and a few weapons can mount other weapons on them, such as the assault rifles being able to carry a single-shot shotgun, high explosive grenade or smoke launcher.
  • Guns Akimbo: Terran Republic MAXes in PS1 carry a large gun in each hand. In PS2, all factions can dual-wield on their MAX suits, allowing players to mix-and-match armaments, such as carrying a flak cannon in the left arm and a Gatling gun in the other.
  • Hand Cannon: The Nanite Systems Commissioner and Underboss revolvers in PS2. Aside from being ridiculously oversized, the former can kill Infiltrator classes in a single headshot, and any non-MAX class in one headshot and a body shot.
  • Have a Nice Death: Suicide or death by falling in Planetside 2 results in a laughing skull icon with "Suicide: Stop killing yourself." written underneath it.
  • Hell Is That Noise: In Planetside 2:
    • The sound of decloaking or a jetpack is all the warning you get before being shot in the back.
    • The rev of an engine means you might - might - have time to get out of the way of being run over by a Harasser.
    • The sound of lasher fire, from all the times it has made a door or hallway impossible to survive.
  • He Was Right There All Along: The general reaction to an Infiltrator with a Stalker cloak getting revealed, either by them suddenly attacking, a flashlight revealing them, or just someone stumbling across them and noticing the incredibly faint distortion from their cloaks.
  • Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: All the Empires are guilty of this. The Terran Republic has bright red and black uniforms, the Vanu Sovereignty has shiny purple and green armor, and the New Conglomerate has neon yellow and blue. PlanetSide 2 tones down the colors on the uniforms, but the red stripes and goggles of the TR, arctic camouflage of the NC, and cyan Tron Lines of the VS still stand out. This can be brought up to eleven with the glowing hardlight or auraxium armors.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: The NC Infiltrator in Planetside 2. A stealth character with a bright white and teal jumpsuit and a helmet that wouldn't look out of place in Halo. The TR Infiltrator is a bit darker due to black being one of the primary colors of the Terran Republic, but its still got some bright red highlights as well. The VS Infiltrator was originally bright grey with a silver and teal helmet before being made almost entirely black. Still, all three stand out quite clearly during the daytime without their cloaks being active.
  • Holiday Mode:
    • Christmas in 1 has snowmen and gingerbread men placed around the levels; finding them granted you use of a special item to regenerate your stamina for the duration of the event. Other holidays had different events each year.
    • Snowmen returned in the second game in a different fashion, as currently implemented they reward the entire squad with bonus EXP and count towards the Holiday directives, which in turn could unlock several cosmetic items with a Christmas theme.
  • Hollywood Darkness: "Night" time in Planetside 1 was basically day time but with slightly darker lighting, and deep purple fog. Zig-zagged in Planetside 2; it featured extremely dark nights during its public beta playtesting, but they were later lightened up significantly, but its still a significant difference.
  • Hollywood Hacking:
    • Hacking is performed with a special device, which you point at the console and hold down the button until everything's done. A more advanced version of the device allows players to be The Cracker and inject viruses into enemy systems.
    • In Planetside 2, the Infiltrator class can hack equipment and vehicle terminals and stationary base turrets to serve their own empire, while any given player can hack / overload base shield generators and spawn control units.
  • Honest Corporate Executive: The leadership of the New Conglomerate, which clearly espouses pro-freedom beliefs even when conversing amongst themselves. Vanu and TR players will argue that this is a Subverted Trope, and claim that while the executives may believe their speeches, the fact that they directly profit from a war that cannot end proves it's a shallow act to let themselves sleep at night.
  • Hub Level: The Sanctuary, a non-violent social hub set on a station orbiting Auraxis. NPC vendors there can exchange Outfit resources and sell special cosmetic items and weapons.
  • Hulk Speak: The placeholder description from when the Railjack was in testing (then known as the NC 10 Bolt Precision Pro) was in very fitting NC hulkspeak
    This gun hit hard me like hard hit make dude dead
  • Humongous Mecha: BFRs, introduced in the Aftershock update. Ostensibly an acronym for "BattleFrame Robotics", but everyone knows it really stands for "Big F**king Robots".

    I through L 
  • "Instant Death" Radius: New Conglomerate MAXes can use fully automatic assault shotguns—with one on each arm. Two shots is enough to kill any infantry within a few meters, and anyone further away can just be hosed down with hundreds of buckshot pellets. Terran Republic Prowler tanks likewise are infantry murder machines, especially when loaded with the anchored mode and high-explosive cannons. One blast from its dual cannons is enough to almost kill any infantry, while the second shot is basically guaranteed to kill them.
  • Invisibility Cloak:
    • The Infiltrator suit, which renders the wearer invisible with the push of a button (perfectly, as long as you hold still - moving makes it less effective). It never runs out of juice, but provides zero armor points and almost no inventory space.
    • Invisibility is a trait of the Infiltrator class in PS2, with a limited cloak duration and a 'shimmer' effect rather than total invisibility. Conversely, it has considerably more armor than the cloaker suit of PlanetSide, and a primary weapon and sidearm just like every other class. Variants of the cloak include a model that can remain cloaked forever while stationary, but can't be used with a primary weapon, and a shorter duration cloak that also reduces damage taken.
    • The Wraith ATV in PS1 was an unarmed and very fast ATV that could become nearly totally invisible indefinitely, but like the armor suit, became more visible the faster it moved. In PS2, the Flash can equip the Wraith Cloaking Device, which allows it to temporarily turn nearly invisible (with a Predator-ish shimmer) - but unlike the old Wraith, the cloaked Flash is still capable of mounting weapons, and can fire them almost instantly after it disables its cloaking device.
  • In Working Order: Ancient Tech factories. Justified, however, by being made with self-repairing Nanotechnology and hidden inside hazardous crystal caverns.
  • It's Raining Men: The HART Shuttle allows you to land nearly anywhere on a continent via orbital Drop Pod, while the Galaxy heavy air transport allows up to a dozen troopers to eject simultaneously onto an objective.
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • The Basilisk 20mm machine gun for vehicles in PS2. Good rate of fire, decent damage against everything and respectable accuracy at range when burst fired. It particularly shines of the ANT and Sunderer, whose armor and relatively low speed and stable ride allow gunners to keep on target. But on tanks and the jittery Harasser, not so much.
    • Starter weapons of the three factions are this compared to their sidegrades.
    • Compared to the other two factions, the Vanu Sovereignty's weapons are in the middle ground in terms of firepower and rate of fire: they don't hit as hard as the those of the NC or don't fire as fast as the those of the TR.
    • The Engineers. Be it anti-infantry, anti-armor, attack, defense or support, they can fill them all. Anti-air is the only aspect they don't have a good answer to.
  • Jet Pack: Vanu Sovereignty MAX suits have a built in jet pack in PlanetSide 1. In PS2, the Light Assault player class has access to a jetpack that can be upgraded for better fuel consumption and regeneration time, or switched out for a more situational jetpack that has greatly decreased vertical gain but lets players 'drift' great distances.
  • Joke Character:
    • The Beamer was infamous for doing next to no damage; players would describe it as purple flashlight. Because of that, being killed by one is just embarrassing. While the Beamer received an upgrade for PlanetSide 2, it remains the second weakest in damage per shot out of all the pistols, and the only weaker pistol, the Terran Repeater, has a considerably higher damage output anyway due to its three-round burst shooting and much higher rate of fire.
    • VS pistols in general suffer from this in the second game, with their first new pistol being a slightly modified version of the original and their second one being a toned down, more expensive version of the NC's first alternate pistol. Most VS using a pistol will put down the certification points to unlock the Nanite Systems revolver available to all factions.
    • There's also the TR's Cycler assault rifle from PS1. It lacked both the stopping power of the NC Gauss Rifle and the accuracy of the VS Pulsar. While it did have the highest rate of fire and largest magazine, its cone of fire bloomed out too quickly to take advantage of either at the ranges where assault rifles shine, forcing its user to either fire in very short bursts at range (resulting in laughable damage output) or limit its use to close quarters (where it was outclassed by actual CQB weapons like shotguns and heavy weapons.) Most TR players only certed the Cycler because it was necessary to gain access to the Mini-Chaingun heavy weapon. note 
    • The Flash in PS2 is absolutely terrible unless used by an infiltrator (who can cloak the ATV). In almost every conceivable way, the Harasser is outright superior - faster, more agile and responsive, better armored, an enclosed driving position (so you cannot be killed while driving or gunning), the Harasser comes with a weapon by default (a dual 20mm machine gun turret) and can carry a soldier in the back (including a MAX or an engineer who can repair the vehicle on the move). The only real advantage a Flash has over a Harasser is a much short acquire timer and the ability to fire on the move while alone - but good luck hitting anything with any sort of accuracy on the Flash when the suspension seems to be welded to the bodywork.
  • Kill Sat: The orbital strike, available to players with the highest Command Ranks, can net a plethora of kills if used in the right moment.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: New Conglomerate and Terran Republic weapons follow this. The Conglomerate uses a lot of railguns and shotguns, whereas the Terrans just rely on regular guns shooting a ton of bullets everywhere.
  • La Résistance: The New Conglomerate in PS1 is the "good" faction, dedicated to opposing the Terran Republic's tyranny and opposing the Vanu Sovereignty because of their fear of Ancient Vanu technology. They are significantly more gray in PS2, although still the closest thing to a truly "Good" faction.
  • Laser Sight: The Dual Cycler MAX in PS1 had a laser sight mounted on each arm. In PS2, almost all weapons can be equipped with a laser sight, which makes the cone of fire smaller when hip-firing, but is visible to allies and enemies alike.
  • Last Stand:
  • Leitmotif: Each faction has its own style of music. The Terran Republic is represented with militaristic/imperialistic marching music, the New Conglomerate get rocking guitar riffs with some country tones, and the Vanu Sovereignty get Eastern-sounding sci-fi synth.
  • A Lighter Shade of Grey: The New Conglomerate in the first game are definitely the "good" faction, with their bad traits being poor leadership, which stands in contrast to the fanatical Vanu Sovereignty and the totalitarian Terran Republic. Averted in the second game, where the NC is backed by not-so-nice monolithic corporations and a variety of discontents, while simultaneously the Terran Republic was made "good", but the Auraxis remnants are clearly too used to martial law for their own good, and the Vanu Sovereignty have ramped up their crazy technology religion to the next level.
  • Lightning Bruiser:
    • The Prowler in PS2 is the fastest main battle tank tank, can climb like a mountain goat, and packs a pair of powerful cannons that eats infantry alive. The Lightning single-person tank also applies—while not quite as durable as a heavy tank, it can still do heavy damage to unwary larger tanks that are too slow to react to the Lightning flanking around to their weak rear armor.
    • In general, any vehicle in PS2 with engine upgrades. Even a Sunderer transport/support vehicle can run circles around most friendlies/enemies if the driver has certified it with the Racer high-speed chassis.
    • As of Game Update 04, the Flash. It can be outfitted with a front-facing grenade launcher that is extremely effective against both infantry and tanks. It also has a back seat where any infantry weapon can be fired from, including rocket launchers that have no trouble downing aircraft and tanks in a handful of hits, fire semi auto, or be charged for massive damage. Without upgrades it moves at 70 km/h, and is among the best handling vehicles while being small, cheap to give stealth upgrades, and can mount a radar that reveals every enemy for a hundred meters.
    • As of GU08, the Harasser buggy is this as well. While the mounted gun is now given to the passenger instead of the driver, said gun can be replaced with the more powerful variants normally found on Sunderers and main battle tanks, and the vehicle's rear rumble seat is large enough to carry a player in a MAX suit for even more firepower. The Harasser is also more heavily armored than the Flash (although it can still be damaged by light infantry weaponry), and can hit faster speeds without investing in upgrades to do so.
  • Lost Colony: Auraxis in PS2 becomes one of these—300,000 men and women were sent on a fleet of 200 ships through a wormhole that appears every 98 years, but the wormhole abruptly collapsed after only 40,000 people made it through, stranding them on the other side for a hundred years. Fighting broke out on the ships as they searched for over a year to find a planet they could colonize.
  • Lost Technology: The Ancient Tech arsenal.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The New Conglomerate MAX can equip the "Aegis", a riot-shield shaped forcefield projected out of the right arm of the MAX. Totally invulnerable, but the MAX is unable to shoot while wielding it, and it doesn't cover the sides or rear. The NC Vanguard tank can activate an energy shield which gives significant damage reduction to all sides except the rear and bottom for up to 7 seconds. The Engineer's MANA Anti-infantry turret likewise has a small riot-shield forcefield to protect the user's upper body from frontal attacks, but it annoyingly lacks a shield to protect the head.

    M through P 
  • Machine Worship: The Vanu Sovereignty is composed of scientists and zealots that both study and effectively worship ancient Vanu technology. The second game cranks said worship up to eleven.
  • Macross Missile Massacre:
    • The Terran Republic rocket launcher fires a 5 missile salvo which are individually weak but do more damage overall than both the NC and VS rocket launchers. Because of its versatility (it can target both aircraft and vehicles), pretty much every Terran heavy assault carries either the Striker or a dumbfire missile. Woe betide any Reaver or Scythe pilot trying to strafe TR advances without having flares equipped, because in about three seconds they'll have a hundred angry missiles chasing them. It was "buffed" to use dumbfired rockets with proximity lockons against aircraft and fires faster with a slightly larger magazine, but is a shadow of its former self as the rockets are both weak and inaccurate.
    • Both the NC and TR MAXes can fire a full barrage of rockets from twin arm cannons. The New Conglomerate NCM 3 Raven fires a full 5-missile volley in 6 seconds, and reloads in another 2, while the Terran Republic MR 1 Fracture fires 10 unguided rockets in 7.5 seconds and takes 2.5 seconds to reload. Both of these numbers are for a single arm. On a single MAX. Many times, entire squads of maxes with a few engineers will take up a commanding position and rain down death on advancing Armor and any infantry unlucky enough to be standing in the way of the maelstorm of explosions heading towards them.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • The Flash ATV in PS2. It starts out as a hilariously vulnerable, poor handling and unarmed death trap. Investing certs into it can turn it into a Glass Cannon with a 40mm grenade launcher, rocket booster or stealth camouflage, and with the ability to turn on a dime.
    • The Terran Republic in PS2 starts out with some of the worst default weapons (barring the Repeater, the destroyer of worlds), such as the hilarious TRAC-5 which is incapable of hitting an enemy more than ten meters away. However, Terran players can gain access to some of the most powerful weapons, such as the Cycler TRV bullet hose, SABR-13 long range assault rifle and the T5 AMC carbine, the latter two of which are more than capable of out-sniping sniper rifles.
    • The NC 6 Gauss SAW, the starting light machine gun of the New Conglomerate qualifies. It starts out with recoil so high, it is nearly impossible to hit anything that isn't the ceiling. Once you put a foregrip and compensator on it to reduce recoil, you have a highly accurate highly damaging death machine.
    • In the second game, any vehicle qualifies. A stock vehicle of any type is mediocre at best, and a joke at worst, but once they are sufficiently upgraded they become very deadly.
  • Magnetic Weapons: The New Conglomerate uses a combination of standard bullets and railguns - their bullets are fired with gunpowder, and are accelerated down the barrel by magnets, which gives their weapons a very distinctive note.
  • Master of All:
    • The Heavy Assault class; machine guns with huge magazines, Anti-Armor or Anti-Air rocket launchers, and an extremely durable overshield makes them the go-to class for the vast majority of fights. However, the Heavy Assault lacks any support abilities so it is only good at fighting.
    • Engineers can be quite versatile as well, though they rely more on having the right loadout between their turrets and mines (and finding the right places for both).
  • Master of None: Nanite Systems primary weapons are notable for the non-existent recoil and .75 aim-down-sights speed multiplier, allowing these weapons to be serviceable at almost all ranges. However, their abysmal damage model and fire rate means that they will be outclassed by any weapon more specialized in either close or long range.
  • The Maze: The Caverns. Navigation is almost impossible except by ziplines, which zig and zag across the caverns. Did I mention that the Caverns tend to be vertical? With the chance that a random player could pop out of a building and blast you to bits?
  • Mecha-Mooks: Nanite Systems Operatives are robot soldiers remotely controlled by Nanite Systems staff (read: All-Access Membership players). Since Nanite Systems doesn't control territory of their own, they are instead sent in as expendable support for whichever empire has the lowest population on the chosen continent. Distressingly, some Operatives can become hijacked NSO Defectors, which have higher health, a Grenade Launcher, and a suicide bomb protocol.
  • MegaCorp:
    • The New Conglomerate in PS2 is backed by large corporations that want to be free of the socialist Terran Republic.
    • Nanite Systems is a neutral megacorp which produces weapons (such as the NS11), equipment, vehicles (such as the Lightning), and Nanite Systems Operatives, which are sold to all three empires.
  • Mêlée à Trois: Fights on hot continents often have three factions fighting over the same base; usually with one empire defending, and two other empires attacking from either direction. Bonus points when one empire is attacking from the front door...and the other empire from the back door.
  • Mighty Glacier: The New Conglomerate's vehicle designs.
  • Mildly Military: Being an MMOFPS, players will outright ignore the "orders" of players with high Command Ranks. It doesn't help when the commanders start yelling at each other over global command chat. This is without mentioning the tendency of "the zerg" (uncoordinated individual players) to just blindly rush into senseless, hopeless battles at heavily-defended bases like The Crown on Indar or Auraxis Firearms Corporation on Amerish.
  • More Dakka:
    • The Terran Republic's weapon designs emphasize putting as much lead as possible into the air with the highest accuracy possible with as many bullets crammed into the magazine as possible. If you use a Terran weapon, expect a huge magazine and laser-beam accuracy.
    • The core idea behind all Anti-Air weapons which aren't guided missiles is to throw as many bullets as possible at the target and hope something hits. Skyguard equipped Lightnings feature a quad-barreled 40mm flak cannon, and AA MAX units typically carry two 20mm flak cannons on each arm. When coupled with the Terran MAX's fire rate increasing Lockdown ability...
  • Multiple Life Bars: PlanetSide 1 has 2 life bars (or 3, with an implant) for its soldiers. Armor varies by the suit worn by the player, and absorbs some of the damage of incoming fire. Health is self-explanatory. With the Personal Shield implant, you could fuel a shield using your stamina, effectively giving you a third life bar. Vehicles had only one health bar by default, but certain facilities would charge up a "Shield" health bar on the vehicle when inside the facility's sphere of influence. PlanetSide 2 drops the armor and stamina system in favor of Regenerating Shields, Static Health for its foot soldiers- equal amounts of shields and health for all classes except the Infiltrator who has less health, and the Heavy Assault class, who can activate an overshield ability that essentially functions as a third health bar. Vehicles and MAX suits have one health bar, but can be repaired by friendly Engineers.
  • Multi-Track Drifting: The Lightning in PS2 can both drift and do sweet powerslides - The Rival chassis allows it to drift, while the Racer chassis allows it to do powerslides. Tanks were able to do it for a time after a traction patch.
  • Nanomachines: "Nanites" fuel the war effort: They build the weapons, tanks, buildings, and the soldiers themselves. When objects are damaged beyond repair, they're deconstructed by the nanites.
  • Nerf: Expect the flavour of the month weapon/vehicle to be nerfed with the main Game Updates. Of note is the Magrider which lost a lot of its climbing and strafing effectiveness and Rocketpods which had the AOE and damage reduced and the entire platform turned into a Fragile Speedster. Perhaps the most infamous set of nerfs took place during the Combined Arms Update.
  • Nitro Boost: The Flash and Harasser in PS2 can equip a turbo booster, which will catapult them forward at ridiculous speeds for a very short amount of time, then regenerate. The booster seems to work almost like a rocket strapped to the back - a Flash or Harasser that ramps off a hill can engage its booster in mid-air to go soaring across the terrain.
  • No Experience Points for Medic:
    • Averted. While support players (medics, engineers, Galaxy pilots) do not directly gain any experience for healing/repairing/reviving/delivering players and their equipment, they do get Combat Experience Points for any kills made by the players they assisted.
    • Fully Averted in Planetside 2, where the Combat Medic and Engineer gain Experience for healing/repairing/reviving/resupplying players. Additionally, players who fly a dropship or drive a Sunderer respawn point will gain experience when people they recently dropped off/respawned kill enemies.
  • Non-Combat EXP:
    • Recharging a base's generator with an ANT vehicle will grant you Battle Experience Points for every half second the generator is being charged, until the generator is fully charged or your ANT runs out of energy. Players commanding squads get Command Experience Points when their squad takes over a base, regardless of what the commander was doing - either in combat, or simply giving orders.
    • The second game also awards EXP for all sorts of actions, including terminal/turret hacks, spotting enemies for allies (if they get killed soon after), defending bases, or even having low-ranked players in the same squad. EXP from kills is also shared with every player in the same vehicle.
  • Not the Intended Use: The Prowler Anchored Mode ability is intended for medium-to-long range shelling of enemy tanks and infantry. Players quickly realized that the projectile velocity increase pairs amazingly well with AP rounds at killing enemy aircraft, particularly heavily armored ones resistant to flak. Prowler drivers started jamming the nose of their tanks onto hills to aim into the sky to blast aircraft. Galaxies, Liberators, and stupid ESF pilots would be gibbed from a mile out. The projectile velocity buff was reduced to make this less viable, but it's still very popular to blow Galaxies out of the sky. It was even more terrifying when a typo caused anchored mode to give a 600% increase to projectile velocity rather than 60%
    • The Skylance Battery mode on the Colossus isn't just good at taking out Bastion hardpoints and air vehicles. If you can find the right decline and deploy on it, you can start aiming at ground targets and making them disappear in short order.
  • One-Man Army: The Black Ops soldiers, who have ten times the health of a regular soldier and can use any weapon.
  • Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: The New Conglomerate do not believe in the concept of "the curve". The only non-straight lines on pretty much any of their equipment is found on their helmets and on the banana magazine on some of their rifles.
  • Palette Swap:
    • In PS1, your armor is "upgraded" at certain ranks. What this does is change the color of your armor, to make you more distinct. Conglomerate players fear their battle rank 14 upgrade, where they get neon yellow armor that stands out even more than their regular armor.
    • While armor upgrades don't appear in the sequel, players can purchase camouflage for their various classes to blend in with the environment- or be more flamboyant, if they so choose. Guns and vehicles can also be customized in a similar fashion.
  • People's Republic of Tyranny: The Terran Republic at its worst.
  • Planet Terra: The Terran Republic, as the name implies.
  • Player-Guided Missile: The NC Phoenix missile launcher in both games fires a camera-guided missile with great range and maneuverability, though it leaves you completely helpless if an enemy sneaks up onto you while guiding the missile. In the sequel, the NC's Raven MAX guns and the MANA anti-vehicular turret fire missiles that follow the aiming reticle.
  • Portal Network: The Terran Republic in the first game possesses the ability to forcibly enlarge naturally occurring wormholes, opening them up for travel - though they lack the ability to create wormholes or direct where they go. As such, Auraxis became totally cut off from humanity when the wormhole abruptly closed. In-game, the continents (and after the Bending, planets) are connected via a series of warpgates, which deconstruct objects passing through them, while the destination warpgate re-assembles said objects.
  • Power Floats: The VS faction-specific tank and light transport are hover vehicles, getting an edge in agility and terrain passability at the cost of armor.
  • Power Glows: In PlanetSide 2, everything that belongs to the VS.
  • Powered Armor: The MAX (Mechanized Assault eXoskeleton) suits. Slow and clunky, but heavily armored and really good at their designated role (each faction has Anti-Infantry, Anti-Vehicle, and Anti-Air variants). The Terran MAX in both games can deploy anchors into the ground to greatly increase their rate of fire and reload speed, the NC MAX gets an energy shield (an all-encompassing bubble shield in PS1, and a riot-shield in PS2), and the VS get a mobility enhancer (Jump jets in PS1, ZOE "berserk" in PS2 which increases damage done, damage taken, and run speed )
  • Precursors: The Vanu. Nothing whatsoever is known about them, aside from the fact that they're definitely not around anymore, and their technology is orders of magnitude more advanced than anything humanity has ever seen.
  • Private Military Contractors: The New Conglomerate was founded by Mega Corps, mercenaries, and miners. The Terran Republic had mercenaries, but they were all either executed for treason or joined the New Conglomerate.
  • Properly Paranoid: A gameplay version. Experienced soldiers stopping to sweep corners with flashlights, blast foliage with automatic weapons, mining friendly terminals and generators, or tossing grenades into cubbyholes looks kind of silly at first glance... until that moment where they end up revealing an enemy Infiltrator with a Stalker Cloak lurking in the shadows waiting for a chance to raise hell when everyone's looking the other way, or they catch a sneaky Light Assault trying to sabotage or ambush unwary players.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender:
    • In both games, selecting male or female at character creation has zero effect on gameplay, and only really determines what you sound like when using voice callouts. Planetside 2 does also give females a slightly different pose on the character select and "killed by" screen, but it's never seen in gameplay.
    • MAX's are also unisex by design, featuring so much armor plating that it's completely impossible to tell what gender the user is. Not that it actually matters; being attacked by a ten foot tall, bullet spewing juggernaut tends to put such concerns at the far edges of anyone's mind.

    Q through T 
  • Quick Melee:
    • Present in PS2. Pressing the middle mouse button or T will make you whip out an empire-specific knife inhumanly fast and slash it at the enemy—two slashes is a kill against everything but MAX and Heavy Assault (with their shields on). MAXes bludgeon targets in front of them with their arms to the same effect. Averted in PS1, where melee requires you to switch to the knife, and the knife's powered mode (chainsaw, magnetic cutting, plasma cutting) made it incredibly loud, making it more or less a humiliation weapon. Slash attacks without the powered mode were very weak.
    • A later update in PS2 made the knife a regularly equippable weapon again, either by keeping the melee button pressed or 9 on the numpad.
  • Ramming Always Works: Galaxy dropships are large enough that crashing a Galaxy into an ESF will crush the ESF while barely denting the Galaxy. This can also work against unsuspecting small land vehicles like Harassers if you're using an MBT or sunderer, although on Playstation you run the risk of getting crushed and killed by the enemy debris. Subverted if you choose to ram against enemy vehicles of equal tonnage, as this will get deal collision damage to both vehicles. The GSD ability on certain vehicles also makes them immune to collision damage altogether, defying this trope.

  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Terran Republic in PS1 has black and red armor, and are controlled by an oppressive oligarchy. PS2 drops most of the black paint in favor of gray (at least on the infantry) and makes the Republic an actual Republic, at least at first.
  • Regenerating Shield, Static Health:
    • PlanetSide 2 has all the foot soldiers equipped with a regenerating, Halo-style shield. Health is damaged directly when the shield is down, and does not regenerate unless your faction has control of a bio-lab or using a regeneration implant. MAX suits do not have any shields, and only have armor - meaning that they can only be "healed" by an engineer.
    • Most vehicles are the same as MAX suits in this regard, although a few (such as Sunderers) can be outfitted with shields and all have limited self-repair options in their loadouts.
  • The Remnant: The Terran Republic we see (and play as) in PlanetSide 1 is the tiny portion of the Terran military that was stranded alongside everyone else when the wormhole to Auraxis abruptly closed. In PlanetSide 2, they're the military command that took over the Auraxis colony fleet after much of it was damaged or destroyed passing through the Auraxis wormhole. Despite being separated from their command, the Terran Republic is still a powerful force that equals the New Conglomerate and Vanu Sovereignty in strength.
  • Respawn Point:
    • The AMS is a mobile respawn point with a powerful cloaking device. In PlanetSide 2, the Advanced Mobile Station can be equipped on the Sunderer transport vehicle- while lacking a cloaking device, it makes up for it by being one of the most durable vehicles in the game, second only to the Galaxy air transport craft.
    • In addition, Sunderers, Galaxies and Valkyries can serve as respawn points for squad members when piloted, directly placing them inside the vehicle seats.
    • The mobile version in PS2 is called a Squad Beacon, can be placed by the leader of a squad to allow his team to airdrop directly on top of it. However, its highly visible and has a much longer respawn timer than everything else once used.
    • An upgrade for the Colossus tank can turn it into this when deployed.
    • The Bastion is this for all outfit members online.
  • Resurrective Immortality: The ancient Vanu respawning system. When a person walks through a Warpgate, they are "matrixed" into the machinery inside Auraxis. When the person is killed, they will be rebuilt: in the backstory, it caused quite a shock when a Terran commander executed a rogue pilot for flying into a warpgate—the next day, he found the pilot sitting under a tree on a different continent.
  • Retcon: PS2 rewrites most of the back story. Instead of being an authoritarian, USSR-esque state, the Terran Republic is more or less benevolent. The New Conglomerate and Vanu Sovereignty formed before they even arrived at Auraxis, and the worhmole that deposited them there is a naturally occuring event every 100 years rather than artificially opened.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Well, the New Conglomerate's revolution won't be, anyway.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: The faction-specific 10mm revolvers are powerful and ammo-effective, making them the weapon of choice for infiltrators. The NS revolvers in the second game qualify as well, doing much more damage than any of the other, empire-specific handguns.
  • "Risk"-Style Map: While PlanetSide 1 used a lattice-type system of bases being linked by simple lines regardless of location (sometimes leading to surprisingly tactically valuable bases in otherwise useless areas), PlanetSide 2 used a mix of this and a tabletop-style hexagonal adjacency system at release. It later was changed back to the original's Lattice system, to funnel players towards large fights and to reduce the prevalence of "ghost-capping" (single players capturing undefended bases).
  • Rock Beats Laser: The TR use firearm and vehicle design that doesn't really stray from modern technology, yet is able to compete with factions that use coilguns and energy weapons.
  • Shifting Sand Land:
    • Desolation, Ishundar, and Solsar. Ishundar is more of the "rocky and full of dead trees" variety, complete with gulleys scattered around the continent which are vehicle death traps.
    • Indar in the second game, following Ishundar above.
  • Shoot the Medic First:
    • Medics are high-priority targets. Medics with the fully-certed medapp in PS2 are capable of fully healing a soldier in seconds. They are also capable of resurrecting a soldier with full health (albeit without shields, though they immediately start to regenerate) damn-near instantly. Two medics are often capable of keeping each other alive even under heavy fire,. One medic falls over dead, is resurrected by the other medic who then falls over dead and is rezzed, and so on and so forth until the enemy starts throwing grenades at them. Medics can also throw "Nanite Revive Grenades", which project a circular resurrection fuel about twenty meters in diameter. The field will resurrect any allied soldier with half health, excluding MAX armor. On top of that, some medics can pack Regeneration Fields, which immediately start restoring damaged shields, meaning that if a soldier hit by gunfire can get to cover they can recover almost immediately and get back to shooting. In short, Medics are the lynchpin to holding any strategic point.
    • Engineers are essential to maintaining vehicles and MAX units, as well as resupplying ammunition. They're a bit slower about how they repair their MAX allies and vehicles, but they must be killed in order to take out enemy tanks or cautious MAX players, especially as part of a major armored push. And if the Engineers have a Medic or two close by to resurrect them, they become a massive pain to remove.
    • Not present by the first game, as repairing, healing, and resurrecting was much slower, required both players to stand still, and left the medic/engineer vulnerable due to the long holster/de-holster times for weapons and tools - so medics and such were much less powerful. Any player could carry a medapp or BANK, making it to difficult to target "dedicated" medics and infantry engineer support. Vehicle-oriented engineers could be identified by their large "glue gun" used to repair vehicles, or their heavy-duty ACE engineer tools - however, targeting them was largely pointless due to them repairing stuff at a pitifully slow rate.
    • Sunderers are the priority target in both offenses and defensive battles. They provide respawning, healing, vehicle ammunition, and heavy firepower to support an attack or defense. On the defensive, a well-placed Sunderer can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes for downed players to get to important places in the base. On the offensive, an attack can't be repelled until all enemy Sunderers are destroyed. Otherwise enemy soldiers will continue pouring into the base.
  • Short-Range Shotgun:
    • The Jackhammer in both games, and the shotguns in PS2 have an effective range of about six feet. Averted by the Scattercannon and the Sweeper in PS1, which could be dangerous at longer range, and most shotguns in PS2 can be outfitted with slug rounds for better accuracy at range (assuming the player can aim well enough to make use of them).
    • Averted by the NS Baron and Jackhammer in the second game, which boast a much tighter spread than other shotguns.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: The New Conglomerate's approach to firearms (shotgun pistol!) and Humongous Mecha weaponry.
    • Their signature heavy infantry weapon is the Jackhammer (no, not the Pancor Jackhammer), a triple-barreled shotgun with a high semi-auto fire rate and even a rapid 3-round burst mode that can almost instantly kill infantry at point-blank. It is available in the second game as well, as the Empire Specific Weapon for the Heavy Assault class, with all the features of the first game's Jackhammer, although sadly, only mounting a single barrel.
    • The NC's love for shotguns even extends to their vehicles and aircraft. The Reaver in PS2 can mount a nose gun called the Air Hammer: quite literally a shotgun scaled up to fit on a fighter aircraft instead of the standard machine gun or rotary cannon typically found on a light air fighter. Also, NC Vanguards and Harassers can mount the C85 Canister, an anti-infantry shotgun turret.
    • Taken up to eleven by the NC Brawler, which is a shotgun with an under-barrel shotgun.
  • Shoulders of Doom: Terran MAX and Heavy Assault infantry in PS2 have enormous shoulder guards when outfitted with the Composite Armor cosmetic.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
    • Ceryshen, Nexus, and Esamir are all covered in snow, and Ceryshen takes forever to get around due to it being mostly vertical, forcing you to loop around long paths to reach a base that's close in a straight line.
    • Esamir in the second game.
  • Socialization Bonus: Planet Side 2 has support actions (healing, repairing, etc) providing bonus XP when done on players in your squad, and players in squads can respawn at the base closest to the leader and respawn in squad Sunderers, Galaxy transport aircraft, and Valkryies. Squad Leaders get XP rewards for XP earned by their squad/platoon, and can eventually earn a free nice hat through leadership. In PlanetSide 1, the only way to gain Command Rank was to lead squads; rewards included visual customization (shin guards and a radio backpack) and special abilities like the Orbital Strike.
  • Sprint Shoes: The Surge implant, which puts an extra spring in your step at the cost of burning away your stamina while active. MAX suits and BFRs have "run mode", which is basically a go-faster button that prevents you from shooting or strafing.
  • Sniper Duel: A sniping-oriented Infiltrator will end up in a fair few of these, since the only people who stand still long enough to pick off are enemy Infiltrators.
  • Sniper Rifle: The Bolt Driver, and the relatively useless Heavy Scout Rifle. The Bolt Driver can take down unarmored infantry in one shot. The Heavy Scout Rifle, on the other hand, has a ten shot magazine, and does far less damage.
  • Sniper Scope Sway: Present in PS2 with scopes above 6x magnification. Holding the sprint button while looking down the sights allows the player to hold their breath.
  • Space Zone: Desolation, a small map exclusively playable by Outfits in tournaments, is set on a small planetoid orbiting Auraxis.
  • Standard Hollywood Strafing Procedure: A common mistake for rookie ESF pilots in Planetside 2, who pick up the habit due to initially lacking long-range rocket pods and general poor aiming skills. Flying in a very close and predictable run or worse, hovering nearby to whittle down a target, practically encourages slow-firing threats like tanks or AV turrets to score an easy one-shot kill.
  • Sticky Bomb: The Engineer class in PS2 can unlock Sticky Grenades, which stick to players and have a relatively long fuse, allowing you to toss one onto an enemy and watch in glee as he runs back towards his allies without realizing there's a grenade stuck to his face.
  • Stripperiffic: Thoroughly Averted in both PS1 and PS2, though especially noticeably in PS2 with its vastly improved graphics. In both games, male and female character models have nearly identical combat armor- and in PS1, with only slight model differences limited to those necessary to accommodate the different average torso proportions of males and females—slightly more V-shaped in men, with broader chest and shoulders relative to waist and hips, and slightly more X-shaped in women, with broader hips and chest relative to waist. While females retain the same outfits as males in 2, they are considerably more curvy compared to their PS1 counterparts due to the updated graphics and a mid-beta model change—especially noticeable on the Vanu Sovereignty troops and their near-skintight suits. Said suits are worn by both VS females and males. For both of the other factions, though, it's identical combat fatigues all the way. That and, in all three factions, Mechanized Assault eXoskeletons come in only one size and shapenote .
  • Tank Goodness: Faction-specific tanks:
    • NC Vanguard: Has the most armor and an accurate, powerful cannon, and a top-mounted machine gun but is also the slowest. Mounts a deflector shield.
    • TR Prowler: Maximum firepower when fully-crewed, with dual rapid-fire cannons and a machine gun turret. Can lock onto the ground for a more stable firing platform.
    • VS Magrider: This agile amphibious Hover Tank can strafe, and has a precision railgun as the main cannon. Has a Nitro Boost.
    • NSO Chimera: Introduced in July 2021. Equipped with wheels instead of tracks and featuring multiple passenger seats, this tank functions more like an Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
    • And the Lightning, a one-man light tank that can be deadly to small squads of infantry and light vehicles.
    • The Colossus, introduced in June 2020, is a Baneblade-sized super-tank counterpart to the Bastion. It can overclock its Mammoth Cannon with a Mass Accelerator Drive at the expense of self-damage, or deploy into an immobile Anti-Air cannon emplacement that also projects a Bombardment Shield. Like the Bastion, the Colossus can only be spawned by Outfits.
  • Team Killer:
    • Shooting your allies results in warnings to watch your fire. Doing it repeatedly will result in your weapons being locked down temporarily. The NC have a reputation for being team-killers in particular, mostly because their weapons consist of a disproportionate number of guns that deal very high damage, so accidental hits on friendly troops tend to result in instant death.
    • The one thing that kills Vanu Engineers more than anything else? Magriders. Being anywhere near a Magrider while its getting shot at will almost certainly end in any nearby Engineer trying to fix it getting Magmower'd as the pilot tries to dodge fire and unintentionally smashes their allies.
  • Technicolor Magic: The Vanu Sovereignty, obsessed with the nearly magical qualities of Ancient Vanu tech, paint all their equipment in bright purple.
  • Temporary Online Content: In Planetside 2, the Anniversary bundles contain exclusive gear — such as holographic armor in the second anniversary — which cannot ever be acquired once they are removed from the market at the end of the anniversary. However as has been done with the first, second and third anniversary pack, the packs can and may make a return after their initial release.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
    • One-shotting a full Galaxy transport while it's taking off will yield you a boatload of experience by killing everyone onboard. And a lot of respawn timers for your enemies.
    • The NC Vanguard tank can one-shot smaller vehicles and infantry with its ridiculously powerful cannon.
  • Trailers Always Lie: Let's just say the CGI trailer for PS2 has little to no bearing on actual gameplay and leave it at that.
  • Transhuman Treachery: The Vanu Sovereignty has been "touched" by ancient Vanu artifacts. They then decide that disbelievers should die in a storm of plasma fire.
  • Too Awesome to Use: Super-medkits/stimpacks/repair packs granted during holiday events in PlanetSide 1. You could get as many as you wanted and stuff them into your locker, but once used, it's gone forever (or until the next event). Super-stim packs, being the only item in the game that could regenerate stamina, were definitely too awesome to use.
  • Tron Lines: Lumifiber trim allows players to deck out their vehicles and infantry with glowing, faction-colored tron lines. The lumifiber can be turned on and off with a button.
  • Underground Level: The Caverns. Some large bases in PS2 have large underground complexes that need to be taken to capture them.

    U through Z 
  • United Space of America: The New Conglomerate, by dint of...
    • Their core ideology, which is highly libertarian.
    • Their music style, a combination of hard rock and country western, courtesy of a preponderance of electric violins.
    • Their visual motif, which showcases lots of eagles and stars, and their decals feature names like "Give Me Liberty" or "Space America".
  • Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
    • The opening paragraph in the review by Game Informer puts it best: "First-person shooter fans have played the role of the sole, galaxy-saving hero countless times before. PlanetSide 2 is not that experience. On these chaotic battlefields, you are not a master chief or legendary guardian who can expect to have an unlosable war served up to you on a silver platter. Instead, you are a grunt among hundreds, and your job is to serve the war effort until you die (usually a matter of minutes), hopefully taking down a few members of the opposition with you."
    • Yet another quote by Game Informer that exemplifies this trope: "Teamwork is essential to gaining control, which leaves you as a small cog in the relentless, bloody machine." Just like in an actual war, you're not there to be the star of your own story or achieve some sort of glory.
    • The massive and lumbering Colossus tank might be virtually unstoppable if taken head-on in a duel. However, an opportunistic enemy who flanks, is fast, and/or has numbers will make short work of the Colossus. And don't even think about pulling a Colossus alone without support...
    • Some of the most effective tactics and playstyles will be the least enjoyable to go against and are denounced as 'unfair' by much of the playerbase. Then again, most wars aren't won by fighting fair...
    • Using Hollywood Tactics will not end well.
    • The first Planetside required resources in order for bases to function. Much like a real-life wars and battles, logistics were essential.
    • For all their potential lethality against infantry and vehicles, MA Xes also need support from your teammates or it will be overwhelmed and killed. Standing out in the open with a MAX also makes you a very easy target for infantry in cover.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: On 5/23/2013, the Enclave (one of the largest Terran outfits) became greatly annoyed at the lag on the Indar continent, and went back to their warpgate to pull some Galaxies - close to two hundred of them, and Galaxies are by no means small vehicles. The Indar server promptly began to crap itself and implode; any players attempting to spawn at or near the warpgate suffered crippling lag and frame rates that went down into frames per minute until the game ran out of memory and crashed. The server had to be restarted by the GMs.
  • Universal Driver's License: Averted. You need the proper certifications first, like most other weapons and equipment; see Do-Anything Soldier above. Played straight in PS2, where any player can drive any non-locked vehicle (from their own faction) without certifications, though they will need to use cert points to specialize in each vehicle to use them at their max potential.
  • Unorthodox Reload: In the sequel, the Commisioner and Underboss revolvers have a strange sort of twin half-cylinder drum that fans out to either side, to be loaded with three-round speed-loaders, then clicks back together.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: In the first game, MAX suits, melee weapon, and heavy engineer turrets cannot be used by enemy empires, though weapons could be looted from corpses and vehicles could be hacked (or constructed if the player's empire controls the home continents of an enemy empire). The second game plays it straight - players cannot loot the dead and cannot hack vehicles. The only shared equipment between empires are the Nanite Systems weapons, base turrets, and a few vehicles. Not even ammo can be looted from corpses, even if they happened to be using the same weapons as you. While you can hack terminals in an enemy base, it gives you the same options as if it was your own base. Base defense turrets are the only thing you can really steal from enemies, and those are the same for all factions anyway.
  • V8 Engine Noises: The Skyguard anti-air buggy has what sounds like a V8 engine, which stands in stark contrast to the other buggies that sound like crappy 4-bangers.
  • Weapon-Based Characterization: Gatling Good and More Dakka for the Terran Republic, just classic gunpowder-based firearms. For the Vanu Sovereignty, it's all about Frickin' Laser Beams and Plasma Cannons, and other energy weapons. For the New Conglomerate, it's Magnetic Weapons and a focus on Shotguns Are Just Better that is more than strictly sane - shotgun pistols for the rank-and-file, triple-barrelled shotguns for their assault troops, nose-mounted shotgun cannons for their aircraft...
  • Weapon of Peace: The Liberator. In PlanetSide 1, it's a high-altitude carpet bomber. In PlanetSide 2, it's a giant gunship with high-explosive anti-tank cannons or quad Gatling guns, as well as an anti-air rear gunner seat to defend from pesky air superiority fighters and a primary recoil-less cannon gun that can be upgraded into a chaingun that absolutely shreds ground vehicles.
  • We Have Reserves: Because of the respawning technology, commanders tend to order (or at least attempt to) the waves of unaffiliated players to throw themselves at base defenses. Taken up to eleven during the Reserves - the reserve (free to play, low level) players were typically regarded as cannon fodder for the elite units.
  • We Will Not Have Pockets in the Future: Vanu Sovereignty armor in PS2 lacks pockets, courtesy of their spandex - only their engineer has any sort of junk storage, as their engineer armor wears what is essentially metal suspenders. Averted by Terran and New Conglomerate armor, which feature loads of pockets, supplemented by utility belts on engineers and medics.
  • Taking You with Me: The NSO MAX unit can use an ability called the Time Bomb, which will kill you an anyone within 3 meters if allowed to detonate.
  • The Workhorse: The TR's TX1 Repeater and TX2 Emperor pistols have been in service for 300 and 200 years, respectively.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The New Conglomerate, naturally. Played with in PS2, as their lore mentions that, while much of the NC's ground forces are true blue freedom fighters, a not insignificant amount of them are actual terrorists or former pirates. They signed on since the megacorps were quite willing to pay for their expertise and didn't give a damn how they had acquired said skills.
  • Zerg Rush: In the absence of organizational influences, throwing massive amounts of uncoordinated infantry at a target is a common strategy. It has a good chance of working if the defenders aren't dug in too deep, but if two opposing Zerg Rushes collide, they will fight to a stalemate until one side gets their act together or gets bored.

Alternative Title(s): Planet Side 2

Top