Halo co-creator’s Disintegration set for multiplayer beta

Closed and open beta tests for sci-fi shooter Disintegration are set to take place in the coming weeks, publisher Private Division has announced.

Players can now sign up for the closed technical beta, which will run from January 28 to 29 on PS4, Xbox One and PC via Steam. An open beta will then follow from January 31 to February 1.

The FPS from Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto’s latest studio, V1 Interactive, was officially revealed by Take-Two publishing label Private Division in August 2019.

Disintegration takes place around 150 years in the future and centres on piloting hovering, weaponised vehicles called gravcycles, while simultaneously commanding up to four AI-controlled ground soldiers.

The Disintegration multiplayer beta test will include two modes; Retrieval, which has players competing to deliver a payload, and Control, which has teams vying for various capture points.

Players will be able to play with seven of the final game’s crews in the beta, such as the damage-boosting Tech Noir and the nuke-launching Warhedz.

Private Division said the purpose of the beta tests is “to ensure stability and collect feedback” ahead of when the game launches later this year.

V1 Interactive president Marcus Lehto told VGC last year that he fielded calls from unhappy members of Bungie’s leadership team, when he began expanding his new studio by hiring developers from his former employer.

“Once we started bringing on some of the key talent from Bungie, then others would start to magnetise towards that and it became a really great family,” he said.

Despite luring “key talent” from Bungie, Lehto said he remains on good terms with his former employer and still goes hiking with the company’s president and CFO.

The Disintegration release date looks set to fall in the second calendar quarter of 2020. Take-Two might provide more information on launch plans when it reports its third quarter financial results on February 6.