Firefall's second open beta now live, is all about "expanding the world"

If you missed the first stage of Firefall's open beta, consider this your heads-up that the second is going on right now . What's Firefall? It's a free-to-play MMORPG/shooter/gratuitous jetpack type game, and it involves words like 'battleframe', 'melding' and 'crystite'. More details have firefallen beneath the break.

With stage 2 of the open beta, Red 5 Studios "want to test the mechanics of pushing back the Melding, and taking the war to the Chosen. That's right, instead of defending New Eden against Chosen incursions, you will now be taking the war into the Melding itself." One quick question: what did any of that mean?

The beta will involve "pushing back the Melding", "eliminating the Chosen fortresses" before eventually "unlocking the entire zone". There's a leaderboard tracking the best players, and top-ranked players "will be honored by having statues of their characters in the new capital, and in 1st place, the right to name the city itself." That's pretty nifty actually - particularly if the winner chooses to name it something like New Bumshire.

Head here to sign up to Firefall's open beta.

Cheers, Evil Avatar .

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.