As promised over the weekend, Arc System Works has finally announced the details about the closed/open beta and demo for the North American PlayStation 4 version of the upcoming BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.
For those who pre-order BB: CTB, they will gain access to the beta on May 9, while everyone else will have to wait until May 12 to get in on the action. Regardless of whether you pre-order or not, however, the beta will end on May 14.
All launch characters will be included in the beta. Here’s who they are in case you forgot:
BlazBlue
- Ragna
- Jin
- Noel
- Makoto
- Rachel
- Hazama
- Azrael
- Iron Tager
- No 13
- Es
Persona 4 Arena
- Yu
- Yosuke
- Chie
- Yukiko
UNIEL
- Hyde
- Linne
- Waldstein
- Gordeau
RWBY
- Ruby
- Weiss
As for what players can actually do during they beta, everyone will be able to check out the Casual Lobby mode, Tactics Mode (Tutorial and Practice only) and Versus Mode. As an added bonus, those who pre-order via PSN will be able to go up against live human opponents, whereas the rest will be relegated to just CPUs.
Once the beta period ends on the 14th, everyone will be able to continue playing via the offline demo. Just like before, there will be a reduced number of features for those who don’t pre-order via PSN. Namely, they’ll only have access to four characters (as opposed to the full 20) and only be able to go up against the CPU in Versus Mode. Meanwhile, the last remaining feature, Tactics Mode, will be available for both camps.
All in all, the beta looks pretty solid, though it kind of sucks that the differences between BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle’s offline demo for those pre-order and those who don’t are so different. It makes sense why that’s the case, but you’d think ArcSys would offer a little bit more to those still unsure about the game in order to ultimately convince them to pick it up in May. And do be aware that access to the closed beta is only available to those who pre-order off of PSN — physical copies are a no-go. Not like making such pre-orders would be a consideration at this point anyway, as ArcSys recently announced that they won’t be available until Wednesday, May 9.
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is due out for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC on May 31 in Japan and Asia, and June 5 in North America.
