Gears of War 3 Beta Dated March 4, 2011

Microsoft has announced that the beta for the highly anticipated Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 3 will activate April 18th for people who own the Xbox 360 version of Bulletstorm and April 25th for everyone else.  It will end on May 15th.

Unusual to beta tests, Epic promises that certain stats and goodies earned from the beta will carry over to the final version of the game.  Playing any match earns you a beta tester medal for your profile.  Finishing a match before April 24th will earn you the Hammerburst Weapon, finishing one match during the week of April 25th will get you a Flaming Lancer weapon, the week of May 9th will get you the Flaming Gnasher Shotgun.

There will also be other goodies.  Completing 50 matches will get you an exclusive trashball Cole multiplayer skin.  You will need to play 10 more matches with it on to unlock it for the final game.

Finally there will be the exclusive Golden Lancer which is unlocked for playing 90 multiplayer games.  To keep it in the final game, you must kill one hundred enemies with it while unlocked.

Epic has also announced the game will come in three versions.  The standard edition for $59.99 US, the Limited Edition for $79.99 US and the Epic Edition which will cost $149.99 US.  I’ll post up more details about these editions as they are released.

Gears of War 3 is coming September 20th, 2011 exclusive to the Xbox 360.