PlanetSide 2's Upcoming Critical Mass Update Improves Continent Locking And Rewards

Daybreak Game Company's got a lot planned for its upcoming Critical Mass update for PlanetSide 2. Yesterday, the dev team showed off off the new goodies on a livestream, which you can see archived here.

Continent locking is being reworked in the update, with factions being required to hit 10 Victory Points, triggering an hour-long alert that requires the triggering faction to defend its territory. Success equals a lock, failure means things keep going as normal. The goal of the new system is to simplify objectives and to make continent locking feel more epic, rather than just "happening" at seemingly random times. Also, giant lasers kill everyone. Cool!

And what do soldiers receive for their efforts? There are various tiers of rewards, based on who starts the continent-locking alert and whether it's successful. They'll receive ISO-4, a currency that's used for buying and upgrading implants, based on how active they were for the alert -- no jumping in at the last minute to get all the rewards! There will also be loot crates -- free from playing the game, don't worry about buying keys! -- that can contain unique cosmetics, even for free players.

Some classes will also be getting new abilities:

The light assault class will get Ambusher Jump Jets, which -- unlike the basic Skirmisher Jump Jets -- provide a quick burst of upward movement rather than a steady vertical acceleration. Game Designer Wrel compared them to jump jets in Star Wars Battlefront, but fans of Pharah in Overwatch should get the same idea.

The engineer receives the Nano-Repair Grenade, which sticks to a vehicle or MAX and, after a short delay, repairs vehicle in an AoE radius for 10 minutes.

These changes will be active on the PTS in the near future and coming to the game after their testing period. Watch the video below or check out the blog post on the PS2 site for more.