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Paladins closed beta begins, access to Hi-Rez’s first person hero-shooter can be bought

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In desperate need of a first-person hero-focused point-capping/cart-pushing game to play? Smite and Tribes folks Hi-Rez have you covered with the closed beta of Paladins going live today. Unlike certain others in the genre, you can get access to Paladins immediately if you’re willing to drop $19.99 on it, though the eventual game will be free to play in the same style as Smite. There’s a fair few limitations on the beta at this early stage, however.

Here’s our picks for the best FPS games available.

Rory “Drybear” Newborough, lead designer, breaks down how the beta is working.

As noted there, it will only be live between midday and midnight EST each day, which is 17:00 to 05:00 GMT. Presumably this is to support as many players as want to be in the beta having access while still allowing their servers time to cool down and vital adjustments to be made regularly. According to a press release they’ll be “moving to 24-hour testing as soon as possible.”

Only a few champions (I am so glad we have at least narrowed this vernacular down to this and ‘heroes’, even if Smite is still trying to be an outliar with ‘gods’) are available in this first version and they’ve got a brand spanking new trailer to show themselves off in.

Some familiar and not so familiar combinations of abilities here. It’s interesting seeing how Overwatch, Paladins, Battleborn and others are all playing with the same formulas in different ways. Blizzard’s effort already has my heart but now they’re directly competing we should see some exciting things happen. Other than Team Fortress 2 – which is a lot further from this type of game than it initially looked – there just haven’t been that many titles doing this sort of thing. We now have a load of veteran development teams all riffing off each other, applying their own coats of paint and modifying ideas. That’s bloody great for creating excellent games.

There’s no NDA of any kind on the Paladins beta, naturally, so you can watch it on Twitchwhenever you like. Beta access is available through the official site, either via the aforementioned Founder’s Pack or a normal sign-up which will place you on a waiting list. Who’s jumping in and if you’ve already played it, how does it compare to others?