Shootmania Backpedals To April, Storms To Beta

Ubi's French horn of public relations sends word that ShootMania Storm’s release is now set for the 10th of April. Fortunately, though, there's going to be a lengthy open beta for us to hop skip and explode into, starting 12th February and continuing, as you'd expect, until launch. It seems like earlier testing phases have give developers Nadeo pause for though, hence the delay. Nadeo's Anne Bondel-Jouin said: "...following the release of the Beta 2 in December, we received a tremendous amount of information from the very active ShootMania community. For a living, online multiplayer title like this the work is never done, but these extra few weeks will allow us to polish the game further and release it to the level of quality we think our players deserve.” This beta has apparently already seen 20,000 maps created by users. Which sounds like too many.

Significantly, Ubi and Nadeo are making serious noises and e-sports, and seem to intend to make the game a contender in that area - something that hasn't happened for a new FPS for some time, particularly in a circuit dominated by RTS and Dotalike play. It'll be interesting to see if the pro care about Nadeo - I suspect they will if Ubi backs the competitions with significant cash.