Announced at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft 3: Reforged is currently scheduled to release in Summer 2019. Given all the changes and potential multiplayer balance hiccups there could be, it makes sense to have a beta before then. Sure enough, Blizzard senior producer Pete Stilwell has said that the development team hopes to release a beta at “some point early next year”.
Stilwell didn’t specify an exact date, only noting “the sooner we can get it started the better” when speaking to Back2Warcraft on YouTube (you can watch the video below). He did note that the beta will be more like a “pre-alpha”. Blizzard will be testing features as they’re ready – like 1v1 matches when the Undead race is done, for instance. This is being done “so that there can be a really good feedback loop, so that if we need to make any course corrections, that can happen”.
If you want to have a chance at playing the beta, you can head to Blizzard’s official page here. Stilwell isn’t sure about the beta’s length, but it could be around for quite a while before release as the team gathers feedback and refines certain features. Perhaps there may be a closed beta as well for those who pre-order the game. Stay tuned for more information on the same.