Halo: Reach Beta Extended for One Day

Bungie is extending the play time for the multiplayer beta stage for Halo: Reach for one extra day. The beta was set to be closed down today, May 19, but the developer is saying that players will be able to enjoy it for another 24 hours, as a sign of gratitude for their participation. Brian Jarrard, who is the community manager at developer Bungie, has made an official announcement, saying, “Our official plans as of now are to turn off the Reach beta on Thursday, 5/20 at 10AM PDT”.

Bungie is also saying that there are 298,942 players have logged into the Reach beta in the last 24-hour period, with more than 123 million taking part during the entire play period. Bungie says that the anticipation for Reach is so high that more people joined in the multiplayer testing phase on the first day than took part in the previous Halo 3 beta during the entire testing period.

The beta stage for Halo: Reach was designed to show players what changes they can expect in the last videogame, in the series to be put together by Bungie before they go on to work on a new franchise for publisher Activision. The game will offer both a single player campaign, which focuses on the valiant defense of Reach mounted by the Spartan super soldiers, and a multiplayer mode that will pit Covenant against Terran in a variety of game modes, like Generator Defence and Invasion. For the first time in the series, players will be able to customize the special, armor based powers that they will use in multiplayer.

More information on the single player component of Halo: Reach, including details on the cooperative play options included by Bungie, will likely be offered at the presentation that Microsoft will have at the E3 trade show, which starts in less than a month.