Staggered beta access is the buzz-phrase-of-the-week around here. Not be left out in the cold, Epic Games has out-laid their plans for Gears of War 3 and how players can get in, get in early, and get some.
The easiest way to access the Gears 3 beta is to pre-order the title at GameStop, which will put you into the beta program on April 25th. Those who picked up Bulletstorm are going to leap into the fray one week early, as they’ll gain entry on April 18th. Whatever the case, the beta will run until May 15th.
If you do participate, there’s a ridiculous amount of unlockables you can score for the final release of the game. Here’s the list from the press release:
- Beta Tester Medal – Complete one match in the beta to unlock the Beta Tester medal, which will carry over to your gamer profile in the final game. The Beta Tester title will be featured in the “Gears 3″ multiplayer lobby as well.
- Thrashball Cole – Complete 50 matches in any game type to unlock the Thrashball Cole character variant in the beta. Once unlocked, complete 10 matches as Thrashball Cole during the beta and the character will carry over to your gamer profile in the final game.
- Gold-Plated Retro Lancer – Show your ultimate “Gears of War” fandom by unlocking the Gold-Plated Retro Lancer. Complete 90 matches in any game type to unlock it for the beta, and score 100 kills with it once unlocked to carry the exclusive weapon skin over to your gamer profile in the final game.
- Flaming Hammerburst – Complete one match by Sunday, April 24 and unlock this weapon variant.
- Flaming Lancer – Complete one match during the week of April 25 and unlock this weapon variant.
- Flaming Sawed-Off Shotgun – Complete one match during the week of May 2 to unlock this weapon variant.
- Flaming Gnasher Shotgun – Complete one match during the week of May 9 to unlock this weapon variant.
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And what happens to the people that didnt bought bulletstorm and cant preorder from gamestop but are loyal fans of the gears of war franchise?
I think its ok to give bonuses for preordering but its not ok when you LEAVE PEOPLE without something like the special unlockables for multiplayer (trashball cole, gold retro lancer, flaming weapons) I just hope that those are early acces to those things in the actual game and that everyone can unlock them by playing.
Epic Games you need to focus more on your fans and stop being so ACTIVISIONED.
Looks like I’m pre-ordering Battlefield 3 AND Gears 3 today
Oh this is suck bollocks, i mean complete utter bullshit.
So if someone who’s never played Gears before pre-ordered a game that has nothing to do with the series except for some of the people involved made it they get early access to a beta for Gears 3.
Someone like myself on the other hand, has no interest in bulletstorm, lives in a country that doesn’t even have Gamestop (we have GAME who i always buy from,but they have no word on their website about any of this and they fucked up my Dead Space 2 pre-order recenty) who got to level 100 in Gears 2 with over 2 weeks of online time clocked in… get absolutely fuck all.
Yeah it would have been stupid to give people who clocked hours and hours and hours into Gears 2 who knew the bugs and glitches, who know what to look for as errors early access (no i don’t mean myself specifically, just pick people who’ve put in at least x many hours at random), yeah fuck that, let’s give early access to people who bought another game or pre-ordered it, that’s a great fucking idea.
Go fuck yourself Epic.