UPDATED 18:39 EDT / NOVEMBER 17 2015

NEWS

The first Overwatch Beta Test Weekend is happening November 20-23

Unless you’re a famous Twitch streamer with tens of thousands of viewers, you were probably not among the chosen few included in the first round of beta invitations for Blizzard Entertainment Inc’s highly anticipated team-based shooter, Overwatch, but there is a possibility that you might get a chance to play this weekend.

Blizzard announced today that November 20-23 will be the first Overwatch Beta Test Weekend, and the studio promised that a significant amount of fans will get the chance to try out the new game for a limited time.

“During this three-day event, we’ll be opening up Overwatch beta (for a limited time) to a lot more players from our Americas and Europe gameplay regions,” Blizzard said in an announcement. “The objective: help us stress test our server hardware and technology . . . and make a few Plays of the Game in the process.”

“To help us get the most out of this testing phase,” Blizzard continued, “we will be flagging accounts for the Beta Test Weekend a little early, during a scheduled maintenance on Thursday, November 19. We encourage all new recruits to use this additional time to download and install the beta client so you can be ready for action once servers come back online.”

During the test, players will have access to the game’s full character roster of 21 heroes along with a limited selection of only three maps: Hanamura, King’s Row, and Watchpoint: Gibraltar. The limited map selection will allow Blizzard to more easily monitor the effect of so many users playing the game at one time.

“Since this is a stress test, we’re primarily interested in your technical feedback, like how Overwatch runs on your system, your experience with the beta servers, critical bug reports, and other game-impacting problems,” Blizzard explained. “One of our goals is to push our hardware to the limit, so don’t be surprised if you experience performance issues or run into unexpected downtime—that’s all part of the process.”

If you are chosen to participate in the beta test weekend, you will receive an email invitation from Blizzard with further instructions on how to install and play the game. You will also be able to check your status under your Battle.net account, as well as under the Overwatch tab when you are logged in to the Battle.net launcher.

Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment

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