Exteel

Exteel is a massively multiplayer online game published by Korean game company NCsoft, and developed by NCsoft's E & G Studios.

Exteel is a third person shooter where players control giant customized mechs (similar to Virtual On and Armored Core) into combat against other online players, or more rarely, against computer controlled enemies. The game features fully customizable characters, as well as a variety of gameplay modes.

An alpha version of this game was released in Korea, and closed beta testing began in the United States on November 16th, 2006. The developers anticipate releasing Exteel as a "free to download, free to play" format. However, access to better weapons, maps and parts will be limited to customers paying a fee, this game will be Free To Play if you buy the disk with a cash shop. The game's maps contain advertisements for other NCsoft titles, most likely to justify for free play of the game.

Closed Beta
This phase of testing began on 16 November, 2006 and ended on 31 January, 2007. A new closed beta test phase has started on 18 September 2007. All previous beta accounts have been wiped.

Open Beta
The phase of development where anyone is free to "hop in" and help test the game. This phase was scheduled to start around late February 2007, but had since been delayed indefinitely. The beta does appear to be getting underway soon, however, as indicated by the eXteel website.

Update: The open beta test of Exteel started September 19, 2007.