Scars of Honor FirstWatch program

Beast Burst introduced FirstWatch in its July 2026 development update as a community testing initiative for early feedback on prototypes and rough builds — free to join, private, and covered by an NDA, with selected players invited to test specific systems before anything reaches a wider audience.

The stated purpose is to shorten the feedback loop. Rather than waiting months to discover that a feature feels wrong, the studio wants direct responses on movement, combat, UI and animations while those systems are still being iterated. The 18 July post describes it as involving players earlier in development, evaluating systems while they are still evolving.

A second update on 17 July framed it as a communication channel rather than a committee. Feedback is collected and processed, but the studio is explicit that the final call on what is added, removed or changed stays with Beast Burst Entertainment. The programme is also described as ongoing rather than a one-off: the studio says it expects to keep testing this way after launch, PTR-style, for future updates.

The reason it exists is on our playtest page. The April–May technical alpha produced more than 12 000 feedback reports and a rough press reception, and in a 30 June interview the studio said it would reinforce its QA team, set up community focus testing groups and run NDA tests before any future public release. FirstWatch is that promise, named.

There is no application form, and as of 13 August 2026 there is no announced date for one.

This is the part most pages about FirstWatch get wrong, so it is worth being exact. The only instruction the studio has published is in the 18 July post: join the official Discord and read the FirstWatch FAQ there to find out when applications open. No sign-up page, no eligibility criteria and no selection procedure has been published, and no wave of invitations has been reported.

Our own daily Discord digests track the wait rather than resolving it. On 23 July and 24 July players were telling each other that sign-ups were expected soon and that closed tests would come first; by 6 August the answer in chat was still that there was no date and that the announcements channel was the place to watch. All of that is players talking to players, not staff, and we record it as such.

So the honest instruction is a waiting instruction: watch the official announcements channel and the Beast Burst news page. Anything that offers you a FirstWatch application link today is not linking to Beast Burst. When a real process is published, it will appear in the timeline below with its date and its source.

The 27 July video “How FirstWatch Works” is the most detailed description so far, and it splits the work into activities and formats.

The activities are not only combat: prototype reviews, evaluations of unreleased features and UI concept feedback, but also creature design, naming votes for cities and legendary items, and — later — discussions about monetisation.

The formats are focused playtests, focus groups, surveys, one-on-one interviews, ranked idea exercises, and community discussions on specific subjects. Members receive updates in a private Discord channel and may occasionally join live discussions with the development team. Tests are described as goal-oriented: participants are given specific things to evaluate and specific questions to answer, rather than a build and a comment box.

The studio has also described the range of players it wants across those formats — PvP fighters, PvE adventurers, explorers, crafters, traders, theorycrafters, role-players, social players, and solo players who mostly quest alone. Content creators are eligible provided they follow the rules. The stated criteria are being constructive, reliable and authentic rather than fitting a narrow profile, and the July development update is blunt about what that means in practice: the studio says it wants criticism that explains why something does not work, not approval or rejection.

The rules are short and firm. No leaks, no sharing confidential or unpublished content, no special treatment, and no expectation that taking part grants any say in the final decision.

Our knowledge base carries the studio's own wording on both halves, transcribed from the videos: the feedback activities and topics and player selection and roles.

Modest and mostly cosmetic, and the studio says so itself.

The 27 July video lists the planned rewards for dedicated participants: an exclusive Discord badge, a special community role, an in-game title, an exclusive cosmetic item, and a possible credit listing in the game. The July development update mentions an in-game frame alongside the badge and title. Every one of these is described as planned, not shipped, and the credit is explicitly conditional on the studio implementing credits at all.

What FirstWatch explicitly is not, in the studio’s own framing, is a purchase, a VIP tier, or guaranteed beta access. It is free to join and not tied to buying anything. MassivelyOP reported the same line from the July briefing — that testers are not a VIP club and are not being granted a beta-access privilege — alongside the badge, cosmetic and title.

The practical reading: joining FirstWatch does not put you ahead of anyone in a future public queue, and the studio has been careful not to imply that it does. The full transcribed wording on rewards, rules and Discord access is in the knowledge base.

Different size, different stage, different question.

The 30 April – 11 May Steam playtest was open to anyone who requested access, and it drew roughly 200 000 sign-ups against an internal expectation of 20 000–30 000. It was a technical test by design: the studio wanted crash rates, network behaviour and server load under real population, and it got all three, along with the crashes and disconnects it reported afterwards.

FirstWatch is the opposite shape. It is small and selected, it is under NDA, and the builds are earlier — prototypes and half-finished systems rather than a coherent playable zone. The question is not “does this hold up under load” but “does this feel right, and if not, why not”. That is why the formats are interviews and surveys rather than a server queue.

The practical difference for a reader: a public playtest is something you request access to on Steam, and FirstWatch is something you are invited into after the studio opens applications. They are not two routes to the same build, and neither is a route to early access — for what is known about that, see the release date page. If you want the fuller record of what the last public test contained and how access worked, that is on the playtest page.