Blizzard Announces and Holds First Beta for 'Overwatch'

By Dondi Tiples, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, November 22, 2015

Blizzard has announced and is now holding its first beta for "Overwatch" for a lucky group of PC players in North America and Europe.

Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming first-person multiplayer shooter is having its first stress test this weekend, just before the game is officially launched between Q1 and Q2 of 2016.

Earlier on, Blizzard announced the closed beta for North America and Europe late last month, and had announced it would be bringing a separate beta to Asia afterwards.

This first beta kicked off on November 20, Friday at 9 am PST, and is expected to run up until November 23, Monday at 9 am PST.

PC gamers from North America and Europe who had signed in for the beta via their Battle.net accounts were the first subjects considered for the stress test and were chosen based on how early they opted in for the beta and whether their system specs are eligible for the beta's system requirements.

Players with at least a Windows Vista to Windows 10 operating system powered by Intel Core i3 to i5 or an AMD Phenom X3 865 to II X3, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 to 660 or an ATI Radeon HD 4850 to 7950 GPU, at least 768 MB to 2GB internal VRAM, and a 4GB to 6GB of RAM, and at least 5GB available internal memory space with 7200 RPM.

Blizzard began its initial selection Thursday, flagging a number of accounts for beta access during one of its regular maintenance periods.

While lucky players won't be getting any beta key giveaways, they'll still be receiving an email invitation, an "Overwatch" beta license on their Battle.net Account Management's Game Accounts section, and an "Overwatch" tab install button on their Battle.net's desktop app.

During the beta weekend, chosen players will be given access to the game's entire roster of heroes, which number 21 in total, but will only be able to play three maps - Watchpoint:Gibraltar, King's Row, and Hanamura.

"Overwatch" is expected to launch for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the Spring of 2016.