Its quite different, ps2 was better in some parts but way worse in some others.

For example; in ps1 there is slot inventory system, so you need to decide what kind of stuff you want to bring and can loot from dead players too. You can even loot enemy faction weapons. Vehicles also had trunks so you could for example load bunch of mines to a car and make big minefield somewhere. There also wasnt really classes, you just picked what kind of armor you wanted (light, medium, heavy, cloak) and then just pick whatever gear you want to take with you. If you wanted to be a madman with only grenades you could do that too. There also was no microtransactions, you unlocked stuff with certs but it was like 3 certs for somethings, 1 for some. You could reset your “skills” but it had timer. On ps forever i frankly cant see the point of not just giving everyone everything since older players will have everything unlocked anyway by virtue of having been able to play longest.

There was implants, but those were like active skills. You could install 3, i think.

There was health, armor and energy. Energy was for implants. Anyone could take health and armor repair device, it was just 2x2 item, though you also needed some ammo for it too. I dont remember if there was “heavier” variant for them, maybe there was. At least there was some bigger device you could use to fix vehicles.

Infiltrators have infinite cloak, but they have very small inventory and die really fast if shot at. blacklight implants made the cloak quite useless in manned bases too, though maybe some people just cheated, hard to tell. They also had atv that could also cloak if you had the suit.

You could upload viruses to bases and they did… something. Never really got to experience that part. Bases also seemed more complex than in ps2 and had some actually functional stuff in them. They also were easier to get lost in.

There were a lot of different maps. There were the big main maps and some smaller side maps with something that you capture there and then bring to your main bases in bigger maps for somekind of bonus.

There were quite a lot of vehicles, more than in ps2. But many of them were faction neutral i think. I remember there being many more flyers than in ps2. For example, there was some cloak shit that could be used to make teleporter bridge. There was also some huge ship called lodestar which could be used to ferry tanks. There was also artillery tank called flail and you could pinpoint targets for it with laser designator which always got me killed immidately because it shoots very visible laser that directly shows where i was. There was no faction specific fighterplanes but they instead had specific roles. mosquito had gatling gun, reaver had rockets, there was no scythe at all.

Tanks required proper crew to work and you could not swap seats on the fly. for tr tank you either drive, shoot or shoot one of the 2 smaller guns that were for AA, i think…? I think vanu tank had the main gun for driver too and it had one more spot for secondary gun. I dont remember anything about NC tank.

spawnpoint truck was separate from sunderer. It had cloakfield by default. Sunderer was pretty much like in ps2 except it was just assault truck with many guns.

At some point they added even big mechas, but i think that was considered controversial as some hated them. I cant quite remember if that is how it was for sure. They were quite formidable but also vulnerable to flanking. They had different components that could be destroyed to weaken it in different ways. I remember sneaking on one with rocket atv and driving away when it started to turn.

I dont think there was anykind of bullet falloff, so vanu weapons instead had toggleable ammo (normal, armor piercing). Others had to pack both kinds. Vanu also used universal ammo type for basic weapons. Weapons were hitscan weapons, i think. Though vanu weapons still had visible bolts. There was no faction specific snipers but instead a light sniper and heavy one. You could 2 shot someone with heavy so if you had a friend with you that was neat. Aiming with it was difficult since it took long time for reticle to adjust and if you moved the aim a lot you had to wait for it to focus again. faction specific elite weapons were the same as they are in ps2 (lasher, minigun, jackhammer). I also remember there being this one pistol that was really good for infiltrator, it was kind of “laser revolver”. It had secondary firemode that emptied the whole clip really fast and inaccurately. For me it was almost only viable infiltrator gun as you could use only pistols anyway and others didnt do damage fast enough. Though on TR the faction pistol was good enough as it had burst fire.

There were 3 kinds of grenades; emp, explosive and plasma. plasma did dps damage. I think there was just one neutral weapon that could be used to launch them, but they were as strong launcher or not. Grenades also had different modes (explode on impact, timer, …something else maybe?)

certificates worked way differently. You had levels and each level you get… i think it was just 1 certificate. Then you use those to unlock stuff like being able to summon different vehicles or be able to use different weapons.

Each faction had their own faction island which served also as tutorial island. They didnt look different from eachother though. It was still more immersive than in ps2. Then when you wanted to join the fight you actually had to wait for HART shuttle to arrive.

There was no fast travel, easiest way to get around was sometimes to go back to faction island and get to hart shuttle for drop pod, as you could then choose where you land. Otherwise you had to travel to the base you wanted to respawn into and register yourself there, if i remember correctly. Or maybe it was that you could register your homebase where you could always respawn but otherwise could respawn to any nearby spawnpoint when you die, but not across the map. I think the map’s warpgate was also always an option. I also remember there being these spawn towers that sometimes had big fights in them. All they had was circling stairway and spawnroom on top.

Only resource for stuff was nanites and each base had one big silo for them. You had to ferry them from your warpgate, i think.

It was much more interesting game than ps2, but its quite dated and doesnt have same quality of life improvements that have become standard. Still, i would happily play it if it had a lot of players. In its current state ps forever seems to have only occasional gatherings where bunch of people join, though they have made effort to make it easier to see if the server has anyone on it without having to open the game first. The discord channel had more information about that.