The War Z beta to launch on Halloween, trailer shows night time bandit stand-off

An alpha for The War Z will kick off on October 15, a couple of weeks before the launch of a closed beta on October 31. There are two pre-order packages available now on The War Z site offering "Pioneer" alpha access for $29.99, or "Survivor" beta access for $19.49. The Pioneer package also comes with $15 of in-game currency, a badge to show off your pioneer status and a month of "'Stronghold' map server hosting."

There's a new trailer to celebrate this month of testing madness. It shows an encounter between a pair of players, some ambient zombies, and a well fortified house full of player-controlled bandits. Read on to watch the tense stand-off, and see someone stealthily shoot the LOUDEST SNIPER RIFLE at some unsuspecting enemies.

For more footage of The War Z's big open map of Colorado, check out The War Z trailer from earlier this week.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.