This past week I couldn’t stop playing Marvel Rivals. It’s an upcoming hero shooter that despite the 3rd person perspective, feels like a direct competitor to Overwatch 2. And thanks to Marvel’s endless supply of heroes and villains, one that can stick around for a while. I never expected to make it into the closed alpha test (especially after fudging the numbers on my graphics card a bit, teehee whoopsie). When I got the email I figured I’d give it a shot and by god I wish I hadn't, because my schedule this past week was decimated. There are a ton of characters to try and it’s refreshing to get a brand new roster to mess around with. While I loved this alpha test and appreciated my time with it, it got me reflecting on my time alpha/beta testing in general and honestly, I think this is one of the few times it was a positive experience. 

Don’t get me wrong, playtesting is a vital aspect of any game’s development process. Opening up the game to a large pool of players helps to test far more than four employees at the office trying to find bugs and glitches on their own. That being said, QA testers get paid (albeit unwell). Sometimes when you’re playing a test version it can feel like unpaid labor. I remember trying to test out the My Hero Academia battle royale game with my friends during the beta. The servers were so shitty, so laggy, and so unstable that after two hours I don’t think we managed to complete a single game together. I’m not blaming the devs either, it should be expected that test versions of games have big problems. But damn did it feel like we wasted an entire night’s worth of free time. When it comes to testing that’s not too uncommon either. On the other hand when a beta comes out and it does work fairly well, by god does it verify hype. The Street Fighter 6 tests were a great way to learn about the basic functionality of how the game would play and I don’t regret signing up to those in the slightest.

What even happened to this shit?

Testing is essentially a gambler’s paradise. You may get to play a game early and have a blast with a new experience, or you may discover it’s still a mess and waste your time trying to play something that barely functions. It’s not the devs fault for wanting to test their title before an official release, but sometimes the headache may leave you with some regrets. Have you tried any alphas or betas lately? What are your thoughts on testing? Do you enjoy testing games and playing them early, or do you prefer to leave that to others and wait for games to officially release before hopping on the controls? Fill out a survey, check your email, and brace for day one bugs in the comments below!