Battle Islands

 are unique continents designed to provide a balanced playing field for outfit-versus-outfit combat.

The battle island concept has had relatively sparse appearances throughout PlanetSide 2's history, first appearing in 2013 with the temporary existence of the first battle island, Nexus, before going dark all the way through until March 2020, with the emergence of the second battle island, Desolation, returning the concept to the denizens of Auraxis.

"We’re going to build three, so we’re going to have three different Battle Islands. The one that we’re showing now is called Nexus. That’s kind of the first one. And then we’re working on another one called Desolation right now."

- Matthew Higby, Creative Director for PlanetSide 2 (2012–2015)

Three battle islands were announced over the history of PlanetSide 2—Nexus, Desolation, and Ascension—with only two having been created and just one of those currently released to the live servers.

Outfit Wars
Outfit Wars is an outfit-versus-outfit tournament format introduced to PlanetSide 2 early in 2020.

The format pits up to three outfits against each other on a battle island, tasking them with capturing and holding more facilities than their opposition over the duration of a special alert. These tournaments are the only times battle islands are accessible.

Desolation
Despite being the second island to be announced and added, Desolation is the only battle island that has been playable on the live servers of PlanetSide 2. It was added in March 2020 as part of the Outfit Wars tournament system, and is set on a large asteroid in space over which three outfits individually fight over nine mysterious Vanu relics.



Desolation is a large, open continent set in space, with little cover outside of the facilities constructed around each relic. Each outfit controls a unique warpgate variant called a Command Center, whose terminals are powered by a Cortium Silo rather than each individual player's nanite reserves, and the objective was to capture and hold relics as part of a unique Alert, which grants points over time as held. The outfit to reach a certain point threshold first emerges victorious.

Desolation was only playable during the first three Outfit Wars tournaments, opening as appropriate for tournament matches to take place, with each instance of the continent allowing the entry only of relevant outfit members. As a result, Desolation has only been available in the April and May of 2020 and March of 2021. It has not returned to the game since.

Nexus
Nexus was the first battle island to grace Auraxis, temporarily appearing in closed playtests during the latter half of 2013, where select Outfits were granted the privilege of fighting over the island in a one-versus-one format. It is currently slated to return to the game in 2022.



Nexus is a snowy, alpine continent, tasking outfits with fighting over nine facilities for dominance over the island. Nexus' objective was relatively simple; control the majority of the continent's nine bases when the Alert timer elapses to claim victory.

Nexus was made available for closed testing on the Public Test Server in late 2013. In the intervening years, there were occasional comments from developers regarding their continued interest in bringing Nexus to the game, but the addition of Nexus to Auraxis was not made official until nearly nine years later with the 2022 Roadmap.

In the 2022 Roadmap, it was revealed that the battle island would be added to the game to allow for one-versus-one battles via the Outfit Wars system, which previously only allowed for three-empire battles. It was also announced that the continent would support two outfits of the same faction fighting each-other for dominance, something previously not possible in PlanetSide 2, though the specifics are still unclear.

Ascension
The third battle island announced, Ascension was yet another battle island in the works during the early days of PlanetSide 2. It was announced by name on the 57th episode of the Friday Night Ops podcast, by then-community manager and host of the show Margaret Krohn.

Unlike the other known islands, however, no details on Ascension was released passed its name, and no details of the continent have been made public since. Though never confirmed as such, the island was presumably canceled.