APB Reloaded Open Beta Starts May 18

GamersFirst, the development team behind the re-launch of MMO third-person shooter All Points Bulletin, has announced a date for the game's open beta release. The company revealed that it was giving Realtime Worlds' ill-fated online multiplayer title a new lease of life back in November. Over 100,000 gamers registered for the closed beta earlier this year. Writing on the APB Reloaded blog, GamersFirst COO and CTO Bjorn Book-Larsson revealed, "With the builds over the last week fixing most critical issues... we are now heading forward with removing all restrictions to joining the game on May 18, 2011." Book-Larsson also noted that there is a strong chance of players being invited into the closed beta before that date, simply by signing up for a GamersFirst account and the APB newsletter. The plan is to add an extra 40,000 player accounts to the closed beta later today. He also had some strong words for cheaters too, explaining, "We have on purpose not kicked hackers for over a week to monitor what they are doing. That clearly will change." "One semi-famous aimbot site realized that we had caught a slew of their users over the weekend (though we did so silently), then they stopped their own hack, and then earlier today re-enabled it. Sigh... when will they ever learn." The original APB, developed by shuttered Scottish studio Realtime Worlds, was taken offline last September, after Realtime's administrator Begbies Traynor said it could not find a buyer to save the game.