Bethesda has officially revealed that the beta for its upcoming release Fallout 76 will launch in October. Fallout 76 will the franchise's first online multiplayer game. While there was a lot of speculation regarding what the game would entail, it was eventually revealed that the newest addition will be a prequel to the Fallout game series.

The series is famously known for its numerous video games that focus on a post-apocalyptic dystopia following the Great War, which catapulted the world into a nuclear holocaust. Players are put to the test to form alliances, build settlements, and protect the remaining survivors all while battling harsh predators of what's known as the wasteland. The director of the upcoming game Fallout 76, Todd Howard, revealed further details regarding the title at this year's E3, where he confirmed that there would be an beta before the game's release this November.

Related: Fallout 76 Is Not Representative of Bethesda's Future Games

In a post on Bethesda's forum, one of the studio’s administrators revealed Fallout 76's beta - or B.E.T.A., as Bethesda likes to call it a "Break It Early Test Application" - launches this October. While players have to preorder the game from a participating retailer in order to be eligible to join the beta, the first batch of users will be selected at random, with more being added periodically throughout the test. It's worth noting that the Fallout 76 beta launches first on Xbox One before moving onto PC and PlayStation 4, though it's unclear how much of a head-start the Microsoft console will have.

The Fallout game series franchise is one that’s been loved by gamers far and wide for many years. Created by Interplay Entertainment, the first game debuted all the way back in 1997, and has since only grown in popularity as it’s been met with an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences. The franchise seemed to somewhat fall off the map following the release of Fallout: New Vegas in 2010, but gamers were eager to hear the announcement of Fallout 4’s 2015 release. Now, Fallout 76 is taking the franchise further, but not quite in the way that fans would’ve expected. Instead of being set further ahead of the existing games, Fallout 76 will be a prequel to the previous games. So far, the main focus of the game is said to be re-establishing civilization following the nuclear war.

There were mixed responses from audiences upon hearing that the upcoming title would be set as a multi-player game, and it seems that fans were also expecting the beta phase to be earlier than October. But, given that the game is slated to hit store shelves in mid-November, it makes sense for there to be a beta a month before release, thus allowing developers to get a feel for how the online system would work at launch.

More: Fallout 76 - Everything You Need to Know

Source: Bethesda