SOCOM 4 PlayStation Plus Beta is Live, Play Schedule for 3/22 to 3/28

Our first week of private beta testing for SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs has been incredibly helpful. Though the participants were limited to the “invite only” crowd, their feedback has been phenomenal — with tens of thousands of posts filled with opinions, suggestions, comments and more pouring into our beta forum.

Starting today, it’s time for PlayStation Plus members to get their turn as they join the existing testers for the next phase of our pre-release examination. Though similar to last week’s schedule, this week’s agenda is a bit different. Here’s what game types you can expect to see starting today:

· Tuesday (3/22) – Suppression, Classic Suppression, Scrum (Custom), Community Day Classic (Custom)

· Wednesday (3/23) – Uplink, Classic Uplink, Suppression, Classic Suppression

· Thursday (3/24) – Last Defense, Classic Last Defense, Uplink, Classic Uplink

· Friday (3/25) – Bomb Squad, Classic Bomb Squad, Last Defense, Classic Last Defense

· Saturday (3/26) – Sniper Alley (Custom), Last Defense Run ‘n Gun (Custom), Bomb Squad, Classic Bomb Squad

· Sunday (3/27) – Scrum (Custom), Community Day Classic (Custom), Sniper Alley (Custom), Last Defense Run ‘n Gun (Custom)

· Monday (3/28) – Suppression, Classic Suppression, Scrum (Custom), Community Day Classic (Custom)

If you missed last week’s post, the multiplayer beta includes two maps, Port Authority and Assault & Battery, and offers a variety of built-in game-types and custom game-types:

Suppression: The SOCOM take on team deathmatch.

Last Defense: Capture controls points, discover the enemy base and destroy it.

Uplink: Steal enemy data and deliver it to your base.

Bomb Squad: Defend your bomb technician while he disarms enemy explosives.

Sniper Alley (Custom): An 8 vs. 8 version of Classic Suppression with higher damage. Weapons are limited to sniper rifles, shotguns, smoke grenades and poison gas.

Last Defense Run ‘n Gun (Custom): Faster movement speed and reduced damage are applied to 16 vs. 16 Last Defense with weapons restricted to only shotguns and SMGs.

Scrum (Custom): Suppression is given rule tweaks of no respawn, faster movement and higher damage, while sniper rifles, frag grenades, concussion grenades and poison gas are disallowed.

Community Day Classic (Custom): A medley featuring Classic versions of all four game types (Suppression, Last Defense, Uplink and Bomb Squad) with increased speed and weapon restrictions placed on ranged explosives. Each game type is played over 11 five-minute rounds.

All built-in game-types (re: not “Custom”) will be playable in both the Standard and Classic variations. Standard mode closely mimics the single-player experience, while Classic harkens back to older SOCOM titles with increased movement speeds, round-based play, no player respawns and the lack of health regeneration. Our Custom types mix and match a number of game settings, delivering fresh takes on our core rule sets.

As before, after you’ve had a chance to play the beta, we’d love to hear your feedback! Once you’ve downloaded the beta and played a complete match, you’ll then gain access to our private beta forums on SOCOM.com where you can share your stories with other players and leave us your feedback. SOCOM has always been a very player-driven franchise and your opinions are very important to us, so please let us know what you think! We’ll see you again next week on the SOCOM blog with an updated schedule, or you can keep updated on our latest agenda through our in-game news feed.