Darwin Project, the battle royale game that in December gave us what may be the most tenuous article introduction in PC Gamer's glorious history, will hold its second and final open beta session this weekend. From February 23-26, players will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the rugged, frozen beauty of the great Canadian north, while simultaneously attempting to carry out a mass-murder spree against nine like-minded strangers.
This beta session will enable private matches, Spectator Interactions over Twitch (they were previously restricted to the Mixer platform), and Show Director ratings, the system that gives one player the power to "keep matches interesting and fair." I suspect the "fair" part may be somewhat discretionary: As creative director Simon Darveau explained in December, the Show Director "is basically god in control of his own game," added to the mix to give Darwin Project a Hunger Games-style edge.
"The show director can actually get his community to vote directly on the streaming channel," Darveau said. "He can say, for instance, one of the players should be [hunted], who should it be? He'll launch a vote, and basically stream viewers will vote for who is to be hunted and this happens directly in the game."
Sure, that sounds fair.
For players who like to watch, a number of "special guests" will stream Darwin Project gameplay for an hour ahead of the launch of the open beta, which will kick off at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET on February 23 and run until 9 am pt/12 pm ET on February 26. The 1.7 patch notes, detailing the changes coming to the game for the open beta weekend, are up at scavengers.ca.
