Not since the release of World at War in 2008 has Call of Duty hosted a multiplayer beta prior to release, but Treyarch will buck the trend by offering fans a vertical slice of Call of Duty: Black Ops III to poke and prod around in this August.
Per the new-fangled licensing arrangement between Activision and Sony, the beta itself will debut on PlayStation 4 first in August 19, where it will enjoy a four-day window into the game’s multiplayer segment before any other platform. After closing on August 23, the bout of testing will then expand onto Xbox One and PC beginning August 26 to August 30.
In order to gain access to Black Ops III‘s budding shooter fans will have to pre-order the upcoming installment – surprise! – and it’s understood Treyarch plans to offer new details about the maps included and multiplayer modes in the weeks to come. Of all the new features being taken for a test drive, the studio is trumpeting the shooter’s “momentum-based, chained movement” system, bestowing players with a greater sense of freedom as they traverse around the futuristic setting.
Taking place a full forty-five years after the events of its predecessors, Call of Duty: Black Ops III imagines a world where the line between bleeding-edge military tech and human soldiers has all but blurred, thanks to the rise of nanotechnology and biomechanics. That will effectively result in super-soldiers lining the battlefield, with prosthetic limbs, retina implants and enhanced reflexes all designed to create the ultimate man-made killing machine. Of course, this bleak future will mainly be explored via the game’s single-player campaign, but it’ll be interesting to see its bearing on the ever-popular online mode, too.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will launch for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well as the aforementioned platforms on November 6.