Gears of War 3: beta and launch info

Finally coming out of its "emergence hole"....

Microsoft is finally done messing with your minds.  We have good news for you, it’s sooner than you thought. With a release date more unpredictable than a clan of angry Locust, Gears of War 3 will offically launch on September 30th 2011. If that feels a bit too far away for you, we have some more good news.  If you pre-ordered Bulletstorm you should have received a special code that grants you access to the Gears 3 Multiplayer Beta test coming mid April. If you failed to pre-order Bulletstorm, than you’ll have to wait a bit longer to play the beta, but it should become available for everyone at some point.

What is the beta like?

Vote for the maps – As a member of the Gears community you can vote for the beta maps here on facebook!

Team Death-match –  You will not be able to play any part of the campaign, Beast-Mode, or Horde Mode.  The multiplayer beta will be team deathmatch only for additional (free) QA.

Rewards – Yep.  If you play enough you get rewards that you can use in the full version of the game.  A lot of games are doing this now with their demos and I think  It’s a great idea.  If you play the Gears beta you can access to a golden retro lancer (we all hate the golden guns), and the Thrashball Cole multiplayer character.

So is the beta worth it? – Dedicated servers, stat tracking, access to almost all the weapons in the game, and it’s free.

So there you have it.  Your April and September just a little bit more exciting… and they’re not space marines.