I've played Planetside 2 with a zealous fervor during its initial few months, constantly riding around in my Magrider, shooting all of the uncivilized mongrels trying to take over my continent, and having a whole bunch of fun in the process. Unfortunately, as the months rolled on the only updates Planetside 2 ever received were either terribly thought-out balance changes or cash shop items, and so it slowly bled population until it became a shell of its former self.

Thankfully, with massive changes to the internal structure of Daybreak Games and the layoff of some of its old 'big shots' Planetside 2 once again started receiving the attention it deserves. The prime example of this is the most recent update that added a new vehicle and resource gathering, a base-building system, a large rework of the Indar continent, and a whole bunch of balance changes.

Here's a brief overview of what to expect:

At the core of the whole construction system is the brand new vehicle, the humble ANT. It is the only vehicle capable of gathering Cortium, magical crystals that are used as resources to either power bases, or to pay for the construction of fortifications, victory points, turrets, and so forth. The trick is, you have to go outside of your base in order to gather Cortium, and then survive the return trip if you aim to actually build anything with it.

What this means is that unlike previous iterations of Planetside 2 you can now win battles through more than sheer numbers and entire rows of tanks shelling the enemy spawn point 24/7. If a player-constructed base is heavily entrenched and well defended, you can simply avoid all of its turrets by shell it from afar, and use your mobility as the attacker to block any incoming ANTs from making their deliveries, thus slowly choking the life out of your opponents without ever having to actually see them.

The unassuming ANT is the cornerstone of any defense, destroy it and the enemy will crumble

The reason you even want to attack/defend these new player made fortresses is because they can hold within them a victory point generator which gives you a certain amount of points depending on how close you are to the enemy Warp Gate, in other words the closer and more aggressive you are the more you will gain. Once your faction achieves a certain victory point threshold you will be granted dominion of that continent, so no more roaming around in packs of 100+ people in order to clean up the last few bases in complete and utter silence before the game finally admits you have won.

There are so many more changes and features that I'm simply unable to cover them all in a reasonable amount of time, so if you're interested in all of the details on balance, construction, the Indar rework, or various other additions I recommend you check out the official patch notes. 

If you haven't played Planetside 2, or if you simply quit many moons ago, I'd recommend jumping in right now because the servers are populated, the battles are intense, and for once there seems to be genuine hope and happiness among the community, something that was in short supply the past year or two.

As a final treat, here's the cinematic trailer from a few years ago, still as awesome as it was when it first released: