Ghost Recon Wildlands closed beta kicks off Feb. 3

Today Ubisoft announced that the closed beta for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands will run from Feb. 3-6. It will take place on three platforms — Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One — simultaneously, and preloads of game data will begin on Feb. 1. Ubisoft says that the beta will support solo play, as well as up to four players working together cooperatively.

Most importantly, the exercise will finally answer the one question that’s been dogging the game since it was unveiled at E3 two years ago: Will the promised multiplayer systems work as intended?

Polygon visited Ubisoft headquarters in Paris late last year. While we were given broad access to the development team, including art and gameplay designers, we weren’t able to put hands on the game.

We did get to play a version of Wildlands at a press event earlier this month. The video above has some of our first impressions of the game.

Players will be able to experience Wildlands in single-player with a team of three AI-controlled teammates. Ubisoft tells us that those teammates can be swapped out at any time for real, human players. Furthermore, they’ve said that available quests and game difficulty will change depending on the skill level and progress of the players making up any given squad.

That kind of dynamic, drop-in/drop-out gameplay, developers have said, was designed into the very core of the game from its earliest days.

Many Ubisoft customers have been left with a bad taste in their mouths after the launch of Ubisoft’s last entry in the Tom Clancy universe, The Division. That game had similarly ambitious multiplayer goals, but the weeks and months that followed its release were plagued by bugs.

Closed betas are not traditionally intended to be stable experiences for players. They’re test beds that companies use to balance the load across their in-house servers and networking assets. Players shouldn’t go into the beta expecting a perfectly smooth experience, but many will be showing up for the first time to see if Ubisoft makes good on their promises.

And, if it’s any indication of their level of confidence, Ubisoft isn’t planning on being stingy with access. You can sign up for the beta at Ubisoft’s website, and each player that gets in will be able to invite up to three of their friends.