Starting April 17, 2012, PlayStation Plus subscribers will get the chance to access the exclusive Ghost Recon: Future Soldier multiplayer beta for PS3. The Beta file itself will be available for download on the 17th, but the actual game will not be available for play until the 19th.

As the anticipated fourth installment of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon franchise, Future Soldier puts players in the boots of the Ghost’s squad leader as he leads his team against an ultra-nationalist force bent on taking over northern Europe.

More on Ghost Recon: Future Soldier multiplayer plus an interview with it’s Associate Producer after the break. 

I had a chance to play Ghost Recon: Future Soldier multiplayer late last year and there’s no doubt that it will once again offer players some of the best tactical shooter action on the PlayStation 3 since SOCOM and Rainbow Six. I also talked with Chris Bray, Associate Producer of GRFS, and he told me that the development team really wanted to focus on teamwork and special forces combat.

 “Those two things have really been the cornerstones of the multiplayer experience. There’s a lot of new features like intel, the new equipment you can use like UAV’s, Sensors, that sort of thing where you can share intel with the rest of your team. So it’s a lot more teamwork oriented than just an every man out for himself kind of game.” 

According to Bray, another feature that’s got the development team excited is called “Suppression;” this is the idea that suppressive fire in a lot of military games that hasn’t really come into play because players can always respawn. There’s not that fear of death there, and that’s really a big part of combat and tactics.

 “So what we’re doing now is with light machine guns in the game, when you lay down suppressive fire on enemies that’s in cover or behind a wall, they’re going to get an accuracy penalty, their camera’s going to shake, there’s going to be dirt kicking up on their screen, it really puts that fear of death into them and makes them less combat effective. So all of a sudden you have an ability to use a light machine gun the way a light machine gun is supposed to be used in real combat.” 

From what I’ve played and from my conversation with Chris, it looks like the Future Soldier’s multiplayer aspect will once again be fully featured and draw armchair commandos in droves. Expect heavy online firefights on your PS3 this May.

Those with automatic downloads set for their account will get the beta pushed onto their PS3 as soon as it is released on April 17. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is set to release May 22, 2012 in North America.

Discuss:

Do you see yourself purchasing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier or are you a CoD or Battlefield type of person?