After close to a year in closed beta, the free-to-play team-based shooter-meets-collectible card strategy affair Paladins has now entered its open beta phase.
Which means new stuff, obviously. Like a new user interface and a new match lobby; a “more robust” in-match item system, and a new ranked Competitive queue with leaderboards; a third map, named Enchanted Forest, and the ability to mix head, body, and weapon skins on your champion of choice, to name but a few of the additions. There’s also 17 Champions, a smattering of which feature in the following trailer.
If Steam achievements are your bag, they’re in via the open beta too, and developers Hi-Rez Studios will also offer players a Team Fortress 2 Engineer skin for Paladins character Barik. This can be unlocked by leading Barik to victory five times.
Interested? The Paladins open beta can download via the game’s official site or by heading to its Steam page. If you decide to do that, you might be interested in our coinciding giveaway where we’re flogging 10,000 keys for the Buck and his commando skin. To apply for that, head here and simply enter your email address into the widget within. Winners will be selected at random with keys being mailed out on Monday.
If that’s still not enough Paladins news for you, you should check out Wes in conversation with the game’s lead designer—it’s an interesting read.
