Pirate Ship Battler ‘Battlewake’ Heads into Closed Beta This Weekend

Beta signup available until July 18th

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Survios, the studio behind Raw Data (2017) and Creed: Rise to Glory (2018), is getting their upcoming nautical battler Battlewake into ship-shape for this weekend, which marks the beginning of the game’s closed beta.

Update (July 17th, 2019)Battlewake is headed into closed beta this weekend, going from July 19th to the 21st.

The closed beta is set to start at 12 PM PT on Friday (local time here), and will run through 11:59 PM PT on Sunday (local time here).

Beta signups are now open, and will be available until 12 PM PT on July 18th; you can sign up here.

Survios says in a Steam news update that the Battlewake closed beta will feature a single playable game mode—Warfare, a cooperative, progressive gauntlet that supports up to four players. The original article announcing the game follows below:

Original Article (May 7th, 2019): The game gives you a choice between a few armed, upgradeable warships, which you captain as one of four heroes.

The ships themselves include 13 different mounted weapons such as cannons, ballistae, axe-throwers and ultimate attacks, making for a variable frenzy of explosions as you maneuver your ship to get the best shot on your enemy—or just ram straight into them if you want. Maybe not the Kraken though. That’s best left up to your heavy ranged attacks.

Image courtesy Survios

Battlewake allows a single player aboard each ship, and can be played in PvE, PvP or in two-player co-op mode (one person per ship) against the magical beasties of the high seas.

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The campaign is said to feature 20 chapters, and upon completion of each mission you’re given in-game gold to spend on leveling up your player skill and outfitting your ship.

Image courtesy Survios

Survios has been a stalwart in creating new and unique locomotion styles, building for Battlewake what they call their ‘Immersive Vehicle System’, which uses adaptive physics and peripheral effects subsystems so you’re not sloshing about haphazardly even when the tides swell.

And they do swell; water is reactive to things like shockwaves, giant whirlpools created from ultimates, tidalwaves and maelstroms.

Image courtesy Survios

In addition to the release for at-home VR headsets, Battlewake will also be available across multiple VR arcades, something Survious says will outfit a combat party of up to 10 players.

The studio still isn’t talking specific platforms yet, however when I tried it at GDC 2019, the demo was shown on an Oculus Rift. The game is also headed into closed beta soon, and you’ll notice on the form that the following devices are listed: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PSVR, Oculus Quest and ‘other’.

Sign-ups for the closed beta begin today, so head on over to Battlewake.com to punch in your email address, region, and preferred system.


Make sure to check out our latest hands-on with Battlewake.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • 3872Orcs

    Looks fun and very similar to Furious Seas, though this seems to have a higher budget.

  • Oscar Dentilus

    yeah looks cool i hope the whole game is not only in the water, hope its like sea of thieves were you can fight skeletons on the land.

  • Trip

    Looks neat, I was disappointed that it’s one player per ship though. What I really want is Sea of Thieves in VR. That game is beautiful (but cartoony), and the water physics are amazing. Sailing through the storm! =O

    The only thing I’d change in SoT would be to put more focus on cannon fights instead of boarding the enemy ship from the water as it’s sailing swiftly along. They’ve added more PvE ship battles though so that’s good.

    Oh, and as an amateur sailor IRL I’m really annoyed that we can sail “head to wind”, that is directly into the wind. We should have to tack, but I guess that might confuse too many kiddies.

    • Rosko

      Actually boarding would be cool in this game if it had a good melee system. It looks fun although the targeting looks almost too easy.
      I would love a more realistic pirate simulator game with multiplayer that would be cool.

      • Trip

        I’m not against boarding, just against boarding by swimming up to a ship that’s at full sail and climbing up the ladder.

    • asshat

      yes but if you do tack you can out maneuver others so well. I got my whole SoT crew yelling tack and we are very fast and nimble

  • sebrk

    Insta-buy. Survious makes incredible and very polished games.

  • Jarilo

    How about Raw Data 2 with less wave shooting and more narrative?

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    I appreciate that the main character doesn’t look at his palms at the start of the trailer ;)

    Jokes aside Survivos have made a lot of very unique games Electronauts, Sprint Vector etc Curious how this new game pans out.

  • Francesco Fazio

    What is this ? An attempt to clone Sea of Thieves and put it to VR ? Looks pretty neat though. When is this going to be released ?

  • sebrk

    FUUUUUUUUU! I’m on vacation and nowhere near my VR room :( Survios delivers every time though. I hope they’ll expand to be a “Sea of thieves” in VR, as in co-op multiplayer stuff.

  • CastlegarGlenn

    Might have been enjoyable if they hadn’t felt the need to use magic. High-seas pirate combat not exciting enough?

  • oompah

    Gorgeous
    It would be so great to feel and experience
    the STD & other disease ridden $odomizing whitte pirates
    of the western world who bamboozelled
    the whole world a few hundred years back.
    (probly the disease ate their brains which made them see ghosts)

    Somebody please make a run of the Captain Cook’s adventure