Total War: Arena rolls out open beta

With Warhammer 2, Rome 2, Saga: Thrones of Britannia and Three Kingdoms all in active development, it's all go for Creative Assembly's turn-based grand strategy series at the moment. In fact, the fog of multiple wars made me almost forget about Total War: Arena—the online-only 10v10 competitive battler that Wargaming is overseeing. Its open beta kicks off today.

The beta brings with it a new faction—the Carthage—who'll fight alongside the current roster's Greeks, Romans and Barbarians. With the so-called "Father of Strategy" Hannibal Barca in charge, players can rock up to war with warring elephants to devastating effect.

Some of that looks like this:

"We are proud and excited to share the results of our work with players all around the globe," Evgeniy Shukin, of publisher Wargaming Alliance, says in a statement. "Together with beta testers, we’ve crafted a game that easily lets newcomers jump in and start battling, while fulfilling the promise to seasoned veteran strategy players who have been at war for years."

Game director Gabor Beressy offers insight from Creative Assembly's perspective: "A passion for history and multiplayer gaming, combined with years of fine-tuning and hard work from both our developers and our valued players, has gone into bringing this Open Beta to the public. We can’t wait for new players to try out this unique Total War multiplayer experience, while we work on more factions and features to add to the Total War: ARENA experience."

Total War: Arena is without a launch date as yet, however Wargaming assures progress from the open beta will roll over to the game's full release. Head in this direction to sign up.