Mark May 16 down on your calendars Halo fanboys, as Microsoft has officially nailed down that date as the launch for the long-awaited Halo 3 multiplayer beta. Beginning May 16th at 5 a.m. PDT and lasting through June 6th at 11:59 p.m. PDT, gamers with admission to the beta through the “Rule of Three” promotion or purchase of Crackdown will be able to hop onto Xbox Live and get a small taste of the multiplayer goodness of Bungie’s epic third chapter of the Halo trilogy. During the beta, players will get an early glimpse of new maps, weapons, vehicles and play modes. More specifically, three all-new maps in the form of Snowbound, High Ground and Valhalla, new weapons like the Brute Spiker, Spartan Laser and Spike Grenades (along with the upgraded Assault Rifle), and new vehicles such as the Mongoose will all be presented for testers to enjoy for the first time.
“Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 changed the face of console gaming forever,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. “Gamers from around the world have logged more than 800 million hours on Xbox LIVE playing Halo 2, and years after its launch it remains the No. 1 title on our Xbox LIVE network. Bringing an early look at the multiplayer elements of Halo 3 to our passionate fan base is tremendously exciting for us.”
If you need more Halo 3 info to tide you over until the beta rolls around, head over to www.bungie.net or check the Xbox Live Marketplace for a new video feature that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Halo 3‘s multiplayer maps and a sneak peek at what’s to come in the beta.
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Such a short time frame. I’m sure there will be plenty of people playing the beta, so they’ll get tons of info that they can use, but regardless, I don’t know…it just doesn’t seem like very long, only about a month. But, whatever makes it a better game, eh? I’m just kind of glad that they are doing an open beta test for a CONSOLE game like this. I think it’ll show that the company has a lot more confidence in the people that play their games and what they have to say. You always hear about companies making games where they “fix their previous mistakes because they listened to the fans”…and they didn’t fix a damn thing. So…here’s to open beta!!!
So I just watched the Vidoc over at Bungie.net that focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game, and man…I wanna play it now! It looked like a whole hell of a lot of fun!!! I really can’t wait for the beta now so I can check out High Ground. It’s about time they started working on more asymmetrical maps. Plus, THE ASSAULT RIFLE IS BACK! WOOT!