Upcoming shooter Battalion 1944 is heading for early access on Thursday February 1st.
Derby-based Bulkhead Interactive, the developers behind the World War 2 game, told Esports News UK back at EGX 2017 that they’re hoping the esports community will embrace it.
Bulkhead has teamed up with Square Enix Collective to launch the game, which is designed to capture and build upon the close combat mastered by FPS games in the early ’90s.
With the genre having since shifted direction, Bulkhead took to Kickstarter to give gamers the chance to jump back into an old-school multiplayer arena.
Now Battalion 1944 is almost ready to launch. Ahead of the early access on February 1st, Bulkhead will also be running a beta from Friday January 19th to Sunday January 21st.
The Early Access version will come with six modes, to be announced later down the line.
For a chance to take part in the beta, visit beta.battaliongame.com. Any Kickstarter or Humble Bundle backers will automatically gain access to the beta, with streaming and content creation allowed.
A new reveal trailer has also gone live:
“It feels good to get Battalion 1944 into the hands of gamers after working on it so hard,” said Joe Brammer, Studio Lead at Bulkhead Interactive. “We’ve been testing the game behind closed doors with our Kickstarter backers. It’s now time for us to extend our testing to Early Access to help what I believe can one of the best competitive FPS games ever.
“We’re going to be using the beta to run domination on the Manorhouse V1 map, as well as showing off our new competitive mode ‘Wartide’ on the map Liberation. It’s one last chance for us to test out our wares with FPS players before we make the leap to Early Access.”
“It feels good to get Battalion 1944 into the hands of gamers after working on it so hard.”
Joe Brammer, Bulkhead Interactive
Howard Philpott, Creative Producer at Bulkhead Interactive, continued: “Getting to grips with the intense nature of the Second World War is something that’s been key to our process.
“That’s something I also think comes across in this new reveal trailer – the action in a Battalion 1944 encounter is as feverish as it is credible. We’ve looked to bed the play down in maps that are both competitive and authentic, for which our trips to Normandy proved immensely useful.”
Battalion 1944 will retail for £11.99, which is less than the bottom tier during the game’s Kickstarter campaign. As a result, those who backed the game when it was being crowdfunded will gain access to unique backers-only skins, cosmetic and vanity-focused loot crates.
Elsewhere, Square Enix Collective recently joined forces with AMD to support AMD4U, an initiative that provides AMD consumers with a range of games from indie developers.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
