PlanetSide 2's New Player Experience Goes Live Thursday

Just last month, we learned that that PlanetSide 2's revised new player experience was coming before the end of the year -- but it comes as a bit of surprise that it's actually coming tomorrow.

When the servers come back up after maintenance, players will be greeted with an entirely new character creation screen, and even veterans will make use of a new character select screen, with new UI, audio, faction introductions, FX, and lighting. The revised tutorial predictably covers all the basics, such as capturing and defending bases, switching classes, reading the map, and more.

Post-tutorial, you'll find yourself in a "faction embassy" to get a handle on your equipment, after which you'll head, uh, planetside to report to your field commander in a room above your faction's warpgate. He'll set you forth on your path to real action, with the help of the mission system to let you achieve simple goals along the way.

Default equipment has also been tweaked, and there are more UI options available, as well as a bunch of other changes to graphics, weapons, and vehicles. More new player experience improvements are still on the drawing board, as well as a suitably spooky Halloween event. For more on Thursday's update, check out the write-up on the PlanetSide 2 forums.