Battalion 1944 Revives Old School Multiplayer With Beta

When first looking at Battalion 1944, it gives the impression that it’ll play and feel like a modern WWII twist on CounterStrike. There’s a reason for that. Developer, Bulkhead Interactive, continued development on the title thanks to a strong Kickstarter following and a yearning for competitive shooters to return to the old ways.

Nick Banks 2018-01-10

Bulkhead Interactive, previous developers for The Turing Test, have designed Battalion 1944 with older shooters of the 90’s in mind. After a long Kickstarter campaign, Bulkhead Interactive are nearly ready to get the game into the hands of gamers for the first time in an exclusive Beta. “It feels good to get Battalion 1944 into the hands of gamers after working on it so hard,” says 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.”

*The below trailer contains strong language

Gamers will likely notice from the above video, that all kinds of old school shooter permutations have been inserted into Battalion 1944. We have tighter, more finely crafted map spaces that offer choke points and a stronger emphasis on close quarter, frantic combat. Weaponry is punchy and lootboxes are cosmetic only. This feels like perfect timing on Buulkhead Interactive’s part, due to the resurgence in WWII themes throughout the games industry of late. “Getting to grips with the intense nature of the Second World War is something that’s been key to our process,” offers Howard Philpott – Creative Producer at Bulkhead Interactive. “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”.

If you fancy a try, the exclusive Beta for Battalion 1944 will run from Friday 19th January through to Sunday 21st January and sign ups for access are available now. Kickstarter and Humble Bundle backers will automatically be sent a game key and we are free to stream content as much as we like.

“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.” Joe Brammer continues, “It’s one last chance for us to test out our wares with FPS players before we make the leap to Early Access.”

Nick Banks

A dyed in the wool gamer from a very young age. Nick is engaged in a never-ending battle, trying to decide if he wants to play games or write about them. A huge Witcher fan, lord of the opinion piece and lover of the shiniest graphics in all the land!