You could be playing Anthem as early as next week, as BioWare quietly announces the game's Closed Alpha dates

Aside from its presence at E3 2018 earlier this year, and the odd livestream to show off some Mass Effect armour, BioWare has been staying relatively mum about Anthem - its new online RPG - in recent months, even as that February 22 2019 release date gets ever closer. That changed yesterday, when BioWare and EA quietly announced the dates for Anthem's Closed Alpha, in which a limited number of players will be invited to test out select parts of the game over multiple sessions across PC, PS4, and Xbox One. 

The Closed Alpha will take place from December 8 - 9, at varying times depending on which platform you're playing on. That's next weekend, in case you hadn't guessed by now, though EA stresses that not everyone who signs up for the playtest will be guaranteed entry into all (or indeed any) of the scheduled sessions. 

You can register for a chance at playing the Anthem Closed Alpha by signing up with the EA Community Playtesting Hub here, but make sure you do before December 3, as this is the cut off point for potential access. There's also a waitlist for when each server becomes full, and you'll be able to pre-install the Closed Alpha before it begins via an email sent from EA itself. 

Each platform has four available sessions over the course of the weekend, and they each last for three hours, meaning the luckiest recruits could get to play up to 12 hours of Anthem in total. We've already signed up ourselves, and will keep you updated if BioWare and EA decide to open up the Closed Alpha to even more players in future. For now, though, keep your fingers crossed, and hopefully this time next week you'll be about to take to the skies as a Freelancer. 

You can read more about the Anthem Closed Alpha on EA's official blog post here, and in the meantime, why not check out our picks of the best co-op games to play right now?