The Battlefield 1 open beta arrives on 31 August; Battlefield Insiders to get early access

Say what you will about Electronic Arts (EA), you have to admit that their trailers are kind of awesome. If this trailer for Battlefield 1 doesn’t get your adrenaline pumping, I don’t know what will:

That adrenaline is also what pushes you to pre-order games that you know you’ll need to wait out. I am being a mite unfair to EA though. Compared to Activision and Call of Duty, they’re doing great work, if only on the surface. Single-player campaigns have been dismal since Bad Company 2, but the multiplayer has remained as much fun as it always has. Battlefield 1 takes the Battlefield series back to the first Great War, World War I. For a war that was notable for the slow pace of combat, aircraft that could barely reach the altitude of blimps and guns that fired only one bullet at a time, EA manages to make the pace look positively frenetic. Horses, blimps and flamethrowers, they’re all here. As are tanks, jeeps and artillery. If, like me, you’re looking to avoid getting your fingers burnt with another repeat of Hardline, you’re in luck! EA has announced an open beta for Battlefield 1’s multiplayer and it’s to be held on 31 August. The open beta will be available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One and will feature one map with two game modes. Up to 64 players can battle it out in the conquest mode on the Sinai Desert map, which includes an armoured train and blinding sandstorms. The conquest mode is the same conquest mode that you know and love. As EA puts it, it’s all out war. Rush mode on the same map will allow 24 players to slug it out as they struggle to destroy or defend telegraph posts. If you sign up for the Battlefield Insider program by 21 August, you can get access to the game a little bit earlier than will regular folk. Other than handing over your email ID (opening it up to EA and affiliate spam at a guess), the Battlefield Insider program only asks for your platform preference for the open beta. See you on the Battlefield.