After almost a year of testing in Japan, the Open Beta date for Gundam Online has been set for 19th December 2012, which is a little over 1 week away. On 17th December, there will be a pre-Open Beta phase as well. Promoted as the biggest Gundam game of all time, Gundam Online will feature 104 players on the same field, with half representing Earth Federation and the other representing Republic of Zeon. The camera view for this game is locked at TPS (third person shooter) mode.
An interesting feature will be selected players becoming commanders on the battlefield, with the abilities to send out spy drones, call for resupplies and more. These commanders are actual characters from the Gundam series, such as Char Aznable. Different commanders will have different abilities. Finally, the machines are separated into 5 types: Strike, Heavy, Sniper, Cannon (nuke) and Support. All of them can be configured with new parts.