With the Star Wars: Battlefront beta the biggest thing this week — since it’s on all platforms, unlike the release of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake (remastered) Collection — it’s a simple question: what’s the most enjoyable beta you’ve ever played?
It’s worth remembering that those who pick up the Uncharted collection will also get access to the multiplayer beta for Uncharted 4 — and the beta for Street Fighter 5 is kicking off later this month too.
So what’s the beta you’ve played that has gotten you the most excited? It doesn’t entirely count as a beta, but playing the demo of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter — which came out before the game, so I guess in practice it functioned how public betas do these days — made me absurdly keen for the multiplayer space mayhem that was to follow.
In terms of modern betas, Street Fighter 5 has made me increasingly keen to buy a fighting stick — and Rising Thunder has made me more hyped for fighters in general.
But what about you?
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42 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: What’s Your Favourite Beta?”
Probably Ingress. I still play it from time to time.
None of them, and I strongly dislike the way that games marketing has redefined ‘beta’ to mean ‘demo’.
Or when they call alphas betas.
Or when they call Alphas full releases.
probably the best ive seen/been part of would be ARK, the devs updated daily, patched serious issues as they were reported, continued to add new features/support.
Hate to say it but Destiny recently – it was a strong beta and silly me made me spend money on a season pass which I never played (never again, never again). Problem with Betas and ‘demos’ in general, that they’re quite misleading if you’re trying to gauge story content and depth of the game. In the case of Destiny, it’s biggest weakness when it was released.
The two that stand out in particular for me are probably the Star Wars: Galaxies and World of Warcraft (original) betas. As clunky as SWG was, it had the best crafting system I’ve ever seen in an MMO and I miss its original profession tree leveling system.
MAG was pretty good. The devs were actively changing the maps & weaponry during it, and paid attention to where chokepoints and the like were. It was reflected in the retail release, which was good.
The beta for Bad Company 2 was fun. Until I played it on my old PC that couldn’t run it properly.
Star Wars Galaxies for me….that was mind blowing 🙂
I had some real fun beta-testing SWTOR. I was so hyped for that game.
It really did live up to it for a while… until it petered out into boring MMO endgame grind and my ultra-powered renowned and feared hand of the emperor was left with nothing particularly important to do, drinking in the cantina, tossing in coins to the jukebox and wondering why his wife wouldn’t talk to him anymore.
Thats about right… end game pvp was pretty fun. Hutball was the reason i played it so much, epic times
Not exactly a Beta but THPS 2 demo. Played Marseille thousands of times.
Minecraft?
I’ve not participated in many, but the Destiny beta sold me on it. Also remember the Uncharted 3 beta being fun.
BFBC2. Coming from Gears of War 5 v 5 without dedicated servers to a 16 v 16 match with servers that had no host advantage was to say the least amazing.
I must have played Port Valdez map constantly over the beta period. Destructible rooms, actual team play and a time when people WANTED to play Rush.
Sigh. I almost wish I could go back to that.
Destiny beta was OK, would be nice if they finished it though instead of charging people more to keep participating 18 month in…
I don’t play betas for fear that they will tarnish the eventual experience for me. I don’t really have any desire to see ‘under the hood’ as it were. I’d rather wait for reviews and play the final product.
COD 4 probably. I was so hooked, it felt so liberating after Halo 3 MP at 30fps. These days I don’t even play COD at all.
I played the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta more than the actual game’s multiplayer when it was released.
WoW – the first time I entered Ironforge was truly a gaming moment i’ll keep forever
Day Z’s never ending Alpha which got even buggier the more they patched it.
I haven’t played it yet – Uncharted 4.
Holy shit am I hyped for that. But I’m a massive Uncharted loser (halfway through the Monastery on Drakes Fortune… I’m actually looking at the pause screen right now…) so I’m pretty biased.
I’ve never really played a beta that sticks out as worth bringing up.
World of Warcraft open beta and scarlet monastery was end game. Elite Dangerous would probably be next, but i already had an oculus rift for that.
The Beta for BF3 pushed me into buying a brand new gaming rig, and was easily the best game I’d played for a long time.
Before that it would be the UT2K4 beta/demo. That was the first game I played online with my first PC back in 2003 🙂
Halo games are generally the best since they are actual alphas/betas that are tested months to a year in advance.
For me probably the Mass Effect 3 beta., or was it a demo?, I was utterly addicted to that 4 player co-op during that time.
Star Craft 2 Beta was the best. Dota 2 beta didnt even feel like a beta.
The best was also the longest beta I’ve ever played was FFXIV. It managed to keep my attention for several months.
I think they free trial of FFXIV was a beta, that’s the only one I ever recall being a part of.
The only one I’ve ever been involved in was the Twisted Metal Beta, otherwise, I don’t much care for them.
I remember one time in the RIFT beta a group of us went exploring underwater and managed to get stuck under a rock, at this point damage from drowning underwater was so minimal your passive health regen was higher, but because you were constantly taking damage you couldn’t teleport out. Good times.
Ark: Survival Evolved. I think that is technically in beta now. One of the (now) smoother betas I have played. Constant updates while annoying at times, are definitely welcome as it shows dedication.
Hands down, RIFT was the best beta I have ever partaken in though and also the smoothest MMO release.
Like a few others here, Bad Company 2 was pretty rad!
World of Warcraft. I still have fond memories of that open beta!
Lately World of Warships, bought into the closed beta and that was worth it. But I overplayed it and was burnt out for the OBT and now release so yeah.
the only Alpha and Beta tests that i ever enjoyed were Heroes of the storm.
Elite: Dangerous had the best beta. Extremely polished, the updates kept rolling out pretty regularly and were always quickly followed up by several patches fixing most of the issues that would pop up. And they keep rolling out betas for their major updates too, which is nice for having a little space for some consequence-free playtime and testing 😛
Battlefield 3 on Xbox 360. Still have fond memories of being sniped from below the map in Metro.
Just kidding that beta was terrible. But the actual game is still one of my favourite multiplay shooters ever.
WoW open BETA was pretty great.
Halo 3 was amazing. Everyone was so excited to be playing we didn’t care it was only like 3 maps.
The Halo Reach beta was pretty neat too, but multiplayer gaming had suddenly gotten more serious in the intervening years and people were overly competitive.
Grim Dawn
Developers try to make the game playable from the start
That’s easy – Crysis 2
BF3 was a close second
Probably Minecraft – started playing in beta 1.7.1… I think it might actually be the only true beta I’ve participated in. Destiny’s “alpha” *cough* sold me on the game, but… it wasn’t a real “alpha” or even a “beta”, it was a preliminary network infrastructure check.