Call of Duty: WWII's first weekend beta is now live

If you're one of the many Call of Duty fans around the world, now's your chance to jump into the beta for this year's title, WWII. That is, as long as you're a PlayStation 4 player and you've pre-ordered the upcoming game. The private beta is being split across two weekends, with the first now live until Monday, August 28th at 10:00am PT. Next weekend, however, will be the chance for both PS4 and Xbox One players to give the beta a try before the game's November 3rd release.

Beta players will be participating in team-focused multiplayer matches from the game's War Mode. Described as Call of Duty's first "narrative-driven, objective-based multiplayer experience," War Mode has players fighting over strategic territory and carefully selecting equipment loadouts for specific purposes. Three maps are included in the beta, Ardennes Forest, Gibraltar, and Pointe du Hoc, each important locales for Allied and Axis forces during WWII.

One of the new surprises that early beta players have already discovered is WWII's new highlight feature for ending a match. For years now, Call of Duty games have simply shown a replay of the match's final kill in slow-motion. This has been replaced with a take on Overwatch's famous "Play of the Game."

Like Overwatch, it seems WWII selects an impressive play from the match to show everyone, with several different types of big plays possible. In addition to standard big multi-kills, there's a "Heroic Save," where the player highlighted saves a teammate from several attackers. It's a much more interesting way to end a match than the final kill replay, as it promotes skilled/cooperative play over simply getting lucky at the end.

SOURCE Activision