October 7, 2010 by Paul Curtin
There was some bad news late last from Epic Games when they announced that Gears of War 3 was being delayed 6 months. The third game in the trilogy was originally scheduled for release in April 2011, but has now been pushed back to Fall 2011. But Epic isn’t done with their big announcements and today comes some good news about a Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta. Besides announcing that a beta is in the works, Epic hasn’t announced much in terms of details, but they did say that GoW 3 will use dedicated servers for online multiplayer.
Being a huge Gears of War fan myself, I was disappointed to hear that it would be over a year until the game was released, but this news of a beta and dedicated servers has brought back my anticipation for the game. I’ve always thought that the Gears games offered one of the best and most unique multiplayer shooter experiences of all time, but their matchmaking and connection issues always plagued the franchise.
Gears of War 2 was probably the worst online experience I’ve ever had with a game on launch. I literally couldn’t play the game online with friends and would spend 30 minutes (sometimes longer) watching the game try to find other players for me to play with. It’s a good sign for Gears of War 3 that Epic is taking their time to perfect the game and work out all the kinks with a beta before the game launches. Check out this month’s OXM for more info about the multiplayer and a picture of the cover below.
