In today's news round up, we have Planetside 2 beginning its closed Playstation 4 beta, Xsyon launching on Steam, Age of Wushu's fifth internal skill reveal, Blizzard teaming with Dark Horse Comics, a reminder for SMITE World Championship, and your frequently asked Evolve beta questions answered.

Planetside 2

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that beginning January 20, their closed beta for Planetside 2 on Playstation 4 will begin.

Starting with a few thousand initial invites, the amount of players with access to the Closed Beta will steadily increase through the Beta period. Players will be invited to the Beta in chronological order of when they signed up. Players can opt in by email for a chance to participate in the Closed Beta through the PlanetSide 2 website: https://www.planetside2.com/ps2onps4.

Xsyon

Xsyon: Prelude, which was Greenlit on Steam in October of 2013, has launched in its Early Access phase. The post-apocalyptic MMORPG, which had a separate PvE server launch in March of 2014, is now available for fans of survival sandboxes, especially if you want the experience without pesky zombies.

Currently Xsyon’s developers are working closely with players to balance and enhance its creature and combat systems. The game features unique systems including creature aging, breeding, increasing power through combat, looting players and migration. These systems are being revisited. Creature AI and path finding are being improved and taming with mounts and pets are currently in the works!

Age of Wushu

Snail Games has announced that Age of Wushu's latest expansion, Transcendence, will be released in just a few short days on Wednesday, January 14. While I've written about this before, the new news is in the fifth internal skill tht classes can get now.

In the new expansion, players can reach a 5th Internal Skill, a trait that heavily impacts character attributes. With this new higher level of Internal Skill, each school has new manuals with special skills available:

• Shaolin – Wushi Chi – Increased chance of Crit Hit
• Beggar’s Sect – Catch Dragon – Increased chance of Crit Hit and Splash Damage
• Royal Guards – Possessed by Ghost – Chance of defensive immunity/offensive Crit Hit boost
• Wudang – Dominating Dragon Blade – Increase endurance and speed during attack
• Wanderer’s Valley – Shadow-catching Bloodthirst – HP absorption for certain skill
• Emei – Nirvana Land – Creates damaging shield when in combat
• Tangmen – Extremely Soft and Cold Poison – Chance to inflict special poison effect
• Scholars – Phoenix Dancing and Singing – Movement damage and Damage Reduction boost when in combat

SMITE

Just in case you've missed all the noise we've been making around these parts or haven't visited the front page lately, we're all geared up and ready to party with the SMITE World Championship over the next few days. Not only will Sardu and Xerin be there in person from Team Hammer, but our friends over at eSportsMax will be hanging out, as well. We're trying out something new during SWC with eSports Betting Pools. If you like betting on things for free and you're a fan of eSports, you should go check it out! There are only a few hours left. If you are looking for information on the teams before getting your brackets set, eSM has a write up about that.

World of Warcraft

In what I personally think to be the coolest news story that I've seen this week, Blizzard has teamed up with Dark Horse Comics to create a new book series based on the mega-MMO World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft: Chronicle will be a multi-volume series that will cover the history of the Warcraft universe. The news announcement says that these books will be available at your favorite local retailer, but also states that you can preorder through an Amazon link. The art currently on the preorder page is not final, but it does say the first book will be hardcover, which will be nice for collectors. Book one of Chronicle will release on November 17, 2015.

Evolve

The Evolve beta is right around the corner and chances are, you're as excited about it as we are. We've been having discussions on how we're going to make people play the monster and the rest of us can beat up on this monster as a form of payback. Since Reuben's gotten all of us sick via email (it's a real thing, 100% positive), I nominated him to be the monster for awhile. What monster gets everyone sick via email anyway? Our friends over at GG Master have put together a FAQ for the Evolve beta. Need the details? Have a look at what Greg put together!