Last June 343 Industries invited the fan community to jump in and get hands-on with a slice of Halo Wars 2 with the first multiplayer beta. They received a tremendous amount of valuable feedback on both the technical and gameplay side that has helped the team continue to refine and improve the overall Halo Wars 2 experience as we march towards launch on February 21, 2017.
As we enter the final stretch of development, they’re happy to announce one more opportunity to get hands-on with Halo Wars 2 and ask for your participation in one final large-scale multiplayer beta. This time around the focus will be exclusively on the brand-new, card-based game mode, Blitz, and it’ll be available on both Windows 10 and Xbox One beginning January 20, 2017.
Blitz is a new twist on strategy gameplay that combines the deck building and split-second decision making of card-based strategy play with explosive tactical combat in the Halo universe. Your card deck, along with your faction leader, are your greatest resources as you assemble a collection of air, ground and infantry units and seek to out-think and out-maneuver your opponents on the battlefield.
The Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta is slated to run through January 30, 2017. The Blitz Beta will take place on the map Proving Grounds, and will offer 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 gameplay via matchmaking on both Windows 10 and Xbox One. It’s important to note that none of the cards or progress you earn within the Blitz Beta will carry over to the retail game but they do have two special rewards that will apply to the full game. As a special incentive and thank you, everyone who participates in the Blitz Beta will be awarded up to two free in-game Blitz card packs in the final retail version when it ships in February. You’ll earn one card pack just for logging into the Blitz Beta and another one after you’ve completed your first match.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.