Halo: Reach Beta Extended Until Tomorrow

Halo fans scrambling to get their last few games in before Bungie flips the Reach beta’s switch to the off position will be able to stave off that inevitable feeling of emptiness and loss for just one more day. In a somewhat unsurprising move, Bungie has decided to extend the multiplayer beta until 10 AM on Thursday. That’s 10 AM- tomorrow! Why would anyone still be reading this? GO!

Ahem. Anyway, this isn’t the first time Bungie’s delayed the termination of a multiplayer beta. When salivating fans were inexplicably unable to access the Halo 3 beta through their Crackdown discs way back in 2007, Bungie felt so bad that they extended the length of the beta by four days, despite the hiccup only lasting several hours. Despite the relative brevity of that little snafu, gamers were outraged; many had taken time off on that sunny day in May for the express purpose of wrecking some fools with the new assault rifle and spartan laser. Some, including one Joystiq employee, even saw fit to write Bungie hate mail:

“You guys have lost all your credibility now. I’ve been staring at the Crackdown menu for a whole day, when I could have been doing something useful!” wrote the very cheesed off Joystiq blogger. “I could have picked up my daughter from school by now, but no, you make me sit here and wait and wait and wait.”

Apparently Bungie learned something from that mistake, as the Reach beta has been running according to plan for the last couple weeks. It’s unclear, then, why the beta’s been extended. Did Bungie need just one more day of massively multiplayer playtesting to gather a little bit more data, or did they just feel like giving fans a pleasant surprise at the end of a successful beta?

What’s clear is that today will be the last day (and possible overnight marathon session) to play Halo: Reach until the Fall of Reach (which is what next fall should be called), rolls around. Halo fans who haven’t booted up the beta yet, if there are any, owe it to themselves to dig up that dusty ODST disc and give it a whirl. In general, the beta’s been met with nods of approval and glistening glimmers of hope, especially in the eyes of one anonymous Halo fan (read: yours truly).