What’s better than hunting your enemies through the frozen wilds on a twisted, Canadian reality show? Hunting your friends through the frozen wilds on a twisted, Canadian reality show.
Today, Scavengers Studio is beyond excited to launch Darwin Project’s first Open Beta, kicking off a weekend of manhunting carnage. That’s right. After months of carefully testing the arena’s lava temperature and optimizing armchair salvage placement, the team’s ready to break the shackles of code-based access and throw their doors wide open to the public!
Check out the Manhunt Dev Diary and highlights from the first Closed Alpha to prime yourself for Open Beta action!
Much like the alphas that came before it, the Darwin Project Open Beta Weekend will welcome new and returning combatants on PC. Unlike these alphas, however, joining couldn’t be easier. Simply head to Steam to pre-load the game’s client, and you’ll be set to join the manhunt between the following times:
Start: Friday, January 19 at Noon PST / 3:00pm EST / 9:00pm UTC +1
End: Sunday, December 21 at 9:00pm PST / Midnight EST / 6:00am UTC + 1
Kicking off the weekend’s festivities this afternoon, Scavengers Studio will take to Mixer from 2:00 to 3:00pm EST as they host three exciting show matches featuring a number of special streaming guests. You can’t get rid of Scavengers that easily, though. Over the course of the weekend, the team will also host a series of matches on Mixer as they test a feature that’s still early in development: Live Spectator Interactions.
With this feature, viewers can bet on the competitors they think will reign supreme and help the Show Director choose targets for their arena-shaping powers. Interested? Simply head over to Mixer this weekend (Twitch integration is planned for the future) and create or sign into your account to let your voice be heard! A breakdown of the team’s broadcast schedule can be found here.
In addition to giving beta participants a boots-on-the-ground experience of the tracking, crafting and survival of Darwin Project, the genre-defining Show Director will make its triumphant return. One lucky player per match will have the chance to monitor the battle from the skies and dole out punishment and support to any combatants who cross them with a whole slew of unique, arena-shaping abilities. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a whole server of players stop what they’re doing to hunt down the poor sap you just revealed on their minimaps. Classic.
Darwin Project kicks off its first PC Open Beta Weekend today. Releasing on PC and Xbox One, it is slated to hit Early Access in Q1 2018 and launch in spring 2018.
