Planetside 2′s latest location, the swamp continent Hossin, is now available for players to explore and conquer.

Planetside 2 is a game many fans of online shooters on PC are already intimately familiar with. Featuring massive battles supporting hundreds of players across diverse landscapes, the game has carved itself a solid niche in the already very niche-y MMOFPS marketplace. Now, the game’s universe is growing again with a brand new environment: Hossin. Dark, dangerous, and foreboding, the swamp continent is a great change of pace for players who might feel they have already explored all the depths the game has to offer.

A new continent is far from the only addition in the game’s latest update. Other new features include improved functionality for squads of players and NPCs as well as the ability for factions to “lock” continents in the game, securing bonuses based on what continent(s) they have under their control.

Early players should keep in mind that most of this new content is in its early stages of implementation, so some intended features will not be functional from the get-go. Hossin itself is being released as an “early expedition” zone, with the content itself complete but many interactive elements like bases being unfinished or not yet added. The team has big plans for all of Planetside 2’s new content, so more updates in the future will add even more to discover as the content is completed.

Right now about 50% of the bases on Hossin are “done” to the point that we’re completely satisfied with the quality of the level design and visuals, about 25% of the bases are first pass – you’ll be able to recognize these bases by their naming scheme, and another 25% are bases which are more or less staging areas, or stamped bases, identical to each other – this is an outpost we know works well, so we’ve put them in as placeholders. We expect these bases to function correctly, provide all the necessary utilities to make the game work – they’re just not 100% up to our standards of level design quality quite yet – essentially they feel more like the bases on Indar than the bases on Amerish. Over the next few months, the level design and environment art team is going to continue to iterate the bases on Hossin and every couple weeks you’ll see more and more of the continent getting completed and patched to live. In the meantime we’re considering Hossin to be a beta, or Early Expedition continent. The continent will be fully functional, but the content is not 100% complete. Of course during this time we’ll be especially interested in hearing feedback, suggestions and bug reports on the continent.

Planetside 2 is free to play, and interested players can find the game on Steam easily enough, though as of yet the announced PS4 version has yet to surface. Until then, PC players have a chance to explore an all-new land early in its development, and possibly even have a say in what happens to it in the future.