Beta signups for 1,000-player battle royale game Mavericks: Proving Grounds open now

If you've been eagerly waiting a look at Mavericks: Proving Grounds, the upcoming 400-player battle royale game, its first trailer was shown exclusively at the 2018 PC Gaming Show today. Check it out above. Even better, PC Gaming Show sponsor Automaton Games announced that a free closed beta for Mavericks will arrive this August, and you can sign up right now for a chance to play Mavericks before it launches in Early Access later this year. Visit Mavericks' official site to register for the beta, and if you sign up before 11:59 p.m. PDT on June 17 you'll receive an in-game weapon skin and starter outfit.

That wasn't all Automation told us on the show. After its Early Access launch later this year, Mavericks’ is planning a 1000-player battle royale mode set on a 16x16km map. This mode will feature squads of five players, while the 400-player mode will support both solo players and squads.

I got a brief hands-on with Mavericks earlier this year at GDC, and while there were only five players in the match with me, rather than hundreds, I will still impressed by the ability to track other players by the muddy footprints they left on the ground. Mavericks will also feature destructible environments and wildlife, and a persistent open-world survival mode is planned for Mavericks in 2019.

TOPICS

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.