The multiplayer shooter with moose-propelled artillery is having an open beta this weekend

Serious-looking multiplayer shooter Striden grabbed my attention last year for one simple reason: moose artillery. It's simple, really, you say "moose artillery" and I say, "tell me more." And if you then say, "Oh yeah, you can become a radioactive bear," at that point I don't say anything because, you know, just sign me up.

I can't actually sign up yet—Striden doesn't have a release date—but I can give it a shot in a pre-release state this weekend by way of an open beta that kicks off at 10 am ET on April 4 and runs until 6 am ET on April 6. Bit of a tight window there, but you'll have another shot the following weekend, in a second round of open beta testing set for April 11-13.

So why is there moose artillery, you ask? The short answer is that the forces of the East and West decided Scandinavia would be a good place to have a war, tactical nukes were deployed, and now everything's a big ol' mess—but the war rages on and you have to make do, right? You may not know this but artillery is heavy.

As we noted when Striden held a holiday playtest at the end of 2024, there are stories of moose cavalry in the real world, but they seem to be mostly apocryphal, and the whole idea is wildly impractical anyway. Even if you could somehow convince moose to follow orders and work together in an orderly fashion (and you can't), sooner or later the moose is going to turn on you—probably when the shooting starts—and now you've got a real problem. A moose will mess you up.

This guy knows the score.

Alaska man ducks into shed to avoid bull moose - YouTube

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But the beauty of vidoegames is that you don't have to worry about the dull, drab limitations of the real-world. We can strap lasers onto dinosaurs, after all, and in that light I suppose moose-propelled artillery doesn't really seem so outlandish at all.

And if gritty realism is your thing, you can also apparently kill guys with a hammer.

Stop. HAMMERTIME! — *This guy will mess you up too.* (Image credit: 5 Fortress)

Bit of a weird tonal shift there, but war is hell and all that.

Striden is currently expected to launch into early access later this year. To get into the open beta, just ahead around to the Steam page and click the request access button.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.