Meet Your Maker, one of the year's most promising shooters, is having an open beta in February

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Behaviour Interactive's Meet Your Maker, an asynchronous "first-person building-and-raiding game," earned a place on our list of 2023's most promising FPSes earlier this month, and pretty soon you'll be able to try it out yourself. The studio announced today that a week-long open beta will begin on Steam on February 6.

Announced in August 2022, Meet Your Maker is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the last remnants of humanity do battle for control of the resources that might actually save humanity. It sounds silly when you say it out loud but that's really human nature in a nutshell, isn't it?

Anyway, what it comes down to in practical terms is essentially a two-part game: Building and fortifying a base to protect your stuff, and then busting into other players' bases to steal their stuff. But don't worry, the stakes aren't too high: You won't actually lose anything when players beat your level. In fact, progression is partially tied to players giving accolades to levels for being fun or creative. Along with various types of devious and horrific traps, you'll also be able to place armed guards and then set them up with customized patrol routes using an "innovative AI recording system."

The open beta will feature a number of changes and improvements over the closed beta test that took place in the fall:

Champion Outpost: A curated system which puts forward Outposts that have performed well
Social Raid: The social raid menu will allow players to search for and raid outposts set to the Social active state
Ranking: Players earn Ranking Points by Raiding Outposts and Activating Outposts in the World Map

New Building features:

Drag and Drop: When building, players can quickly place several blocks of the same type all at once
Trap Range Preview: When building, players can trigger a preview showcasing trap range / area of effect
Delete everything: When building, players can delete blocks and other elements all at once

The beta will also feature a number of improvements to matchmaking, tutorials, the repair system, UI, and other systems, Behaviour Interactive said.

Developers will provide a closer look at what Meet Your Maker is all about with a livestream on Twitch that will start at 11 am ET, one hour ahead of the open beta kickoff. "You can look forward to a crash course on the game with nearly the entire stream dedicated to pure gameplay," the studio said.

Everyone who takes part in the open beta will be given a free "Chimera's Choice" decal to display in the full game. Meet Your Maker is set to launch on April 4.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

New social and progression systems:

New Building features: