Total War: Arena Closed Beta Ends March 3, Will Go Offline For Months

If you're enjoying the closed beta for Total War: Arena, then you'd better get your ancient combat jollies in over the next two weeks. The closed beta is due to end on March 3, and Creative Assembly says it will be "more than 2 months" before it comes back in open beta form. The long downtime is so that CA can improve the game's infrastructure and squash bugs without the additional overhead of managing a live game.

When the game comes back, all gold spent will be refunded; in the meantime, purchasing gold has been disabled. You'll keep all your progress, though, so you can hop right back in and go back to wrecking Roman face when the game comes back online. Also, for the next two weeks, all in-game rewards are doubled, as revealed on the Arena Twitter:

Also, for the next two weeks in ARENA, we have DOUBLED all rewards, so jump into a game and reap the benefits!

— Total War: ARENA (@totalwararena) February 18, 2016

If you do have a major gripe, check out that FAQ for the closed beta's end. It's got some pretty harsh questions, like "All my time has been wasted; why do you think that's OK?" You have to give them credit for at least anticipating some of the hurt feelings and trying to head them off at the pass.