Bellum Opens Weekly Testing to Standard Edition on December 3, Founder Keys Included

Bellum picked Halloween to share its biggest access news since pre-orders opened. Standard Edition owners get into weekly testing on December 3, which means a lot more boots on the ground before the end of the year.

We've been following Bellum here at Milsim Units for a few years now, and it's been a fun one to watch grow. We sat down with Karmakut and Barton, who lead the studio at Astarte Industries, on Milsim Units Podcast Ep. 21, and later with Community Manager Mooskle on Ep. 40, Inside Bellum with Mooskle. We've also covered the Founders playtest and the early devblogs on our channel. So when the team says more players are coming in, we're excited to see it.

Astarte Industries announced it on X this afternoon: "Standard Edition access begins December 3rd." The post points to a new devlog, Bellum Standard Access Announcement and Roadmap Update, which the studio calls "the most productive stretch in the project's history." It covers a big batch of new features, a fresh content priority chart and the plan for Standard testing.

What's changing

Bellum's store currently lists these editions:

• Supporter Edition ($95.99 pre-order) includes Closed Alpha access plus Closed Weekly Beta access.
• Deluxe Edition ($47.99) includes Closed Weekly Beta access.
• Standard Edition ($35.99), plus the four-key Fireteam Edition at $29.99 a key, listed "Early Access Launch."

Today's news moves Standard owners up. On December 3, every Standard Edition account, whether purchased now or pre-ordered, can join the Wednesday through Sunday testing sessions that Deluxe and Supporter owners have been playing. The studio's Oct 29 post said "servers are live for the weekend," and Standard owners are about to join those rotations.

Pre-order discounts and bonuses stay in effect until the 24/7 launch in Q1 2027, with two exceptions: the training wall and the credits name mentions are both removed on December 3. If either of those matters to you, December 2 is your last chance.

Good news for Founders: your extra keys are live

This part is easy to miss. The limited, 500-copy Founder Edition from the pre-order launch came with "Two extra Standard Edition keys to share with friends." Those are Standard keys, so on December 3 they open up for weekly testing too.

If you're a Founder who's been holding those keys, now's the time to hand them out and bring your friends into the fight.

The Founder Edition goodies

Founders also got physical gear. Per the pre-order announcement, the Founder Edition included a serialized Founder Challenge Coin, faction coins for the Rangers and Russian PMCs, and three patches: the ASIF Western Coalition, the SATYR faction and the Bellum morale patch. Here's the set laid out (plus a few Milsim Units stickers, because of course).

What's new in the devlog

The team has wrapped up most of its previous roadmap, and the first half of the devlog shows what that looks like in game.

The BTAC overhaul. The in-game phone used to be mostly a map. Now it's a full command-and-control device. Maps get paper and night styles with contour lines, and every map uses an accurate MGRS grid so players can pass 10-digit grid references. Every building carries a GRG number, laid out like a clock face with the 1200 series always to the north. Contact reports are timestamped so you know how fresh they are, and leaders can drop target reference points (TRPs). Platoon leaders get a command suite on top of that: give each squad a task and purpose, set named phase lines and lanes, and draw the plan right on the map. Every player sees it on their own device.

Faction mortars. Each faction has its own system. The Rangers carry the M224 60mm in the handheld configuration, the Russian Sever PMCs field the 81mm 2B25, and Al-Zalam uses the Chinese Type 63 60mm. Crews level the tube, lay it on target and walk rounds in, with wind, elevation and small muzzle-velocity variations affecting every shell. The team calls this the first iteration, with more munition types to come.

Weapon mounting and bipods. Any weapon can now be mounted on cover, and the game checks barrel and bipod clearance so a weapon only rests where it actually fits. Bipods can be deployed for better arcs and angles than a simple mount.

Crossload presets and resupply. You can save a crossload preset for every faction and role, and it fills automatically on each spawn. The resupply crate interface has been redesigned around the same system.

Squad hold and chain of command. Squad leaders can hold an empty squad for 90 seconds during staging and invite players, so friend groups can stay together match to match. When a leader goes down or disconnects, comms channels, BTAC permissions and objective placement pass to the next acting leader. Teams can also attach to other squads, for example splitting machine gun teams across line squads.

Casualty drag, carry and back-face deformation. Bodies can be grabbed from any point and dragged smoothly, and the second carrier now follows automatically. Body armor models back-face deformation, so repeat hits to the same spot on a plate can be lethal.

Debriefs and replays. Every match ends with a debrief showing hits, friendly fire, lives lost and who revived you, plus an interactive after-action map. Matches are recorded too. Every participant gets the replay in their launcher, with a full camera suite, and replays can be shared for group viewing.

Savo is complete. Savo's seventh AO adds a basin biome for some light trench-style fighting, along with a full lighting overhaul. Vegetation reacts now: grass flattens under players, parts as you move through it, and plants recoil from explosions.

The roadmap: Bellum's content priority chart

The second half of the devlog lays out what's next, and the studio notes the chart may change as work moves along.

At the top of the list is getting new players in smoothly: mandatory tutorials, class certifications and video guides ahead of December 3, plus a performance push for low and mid-spec PCs. Scopes, snipers and ground vehicles will each get their own explainer video, and Medical 3.0 "should be out by the end of the year," alongside Raid, a new game mode promising "a more operation-like experience."

The 24/7 launch is now set for Q1 2027

The studio had planned 24/7 Standard access for this fall, but wants a bit more polish and content first. So Standard testing opens December 3, and the 24/7 launch moves to Q1 2027. The devlog calls Standard testing "a massive step forward" toward that launch, and it gives the whole community a clear path: more players testing this year, then the full launch early next year.

How the community is taking it

The YouTube comments are mostly fired up. "Been playing these types of games for 20 years and this is peak," wrote one viewer. Another said the "game feels brand new now… after action is PEAK." Someone else was just excited about "GROUND VEHICLES RAHHHH," and honestly, same.

One commenter asked a question every unit leader will care about: whether command radios will let you set up platoons or choose who hears a channel, "so that communication is not clogged up by squads which are on another objective." The new BTAC and platoon command tools already move in that direction, with squad tasking, attachments and comms that follow the chain of command, and weekly testing is the right place to keep that feedback coming.

Why it matters for units

Bellum is built around limited lives and platoon-scale play, and it gets better with full servers. More players in weekly testing means fuller lobbies and more chances to run real ops.

For units, December 3 is a recruiting window. Anyone with Standard or Fireteam keys, or a Founder's spare key, can now play alongside your Deluxe and Supporter members. Expect new players who have read the Field Manual and are ready to run their first fireteam wedge with real people.

A few things worth doing before then:

• Plan a first-night onboarding op. New players will be learning buddy medical, mortars and limited lives all at once. A platoon leader can lay out phase lines and squad tasks on the BTAC so everyone sees the plan.
• Set your chain of command. Leadership now passes down when a leader is lost, so brief your seconds and make sure every squad knows who steps up.
• Use squad hold. Squad leaders can hold a squad for 90 seconds in staging, which makes it easy to keep your unit together match after match.
• Round up your squad. Founders can share their spare Standard keys, and the Fireteam Edition's four keys at $29.99 each make it easy for a group of friends to join together.

We'll keep sharing details as Astarte Industries posts more about Standard testing.

If your Bellum unit is getting ready for new players on December 3, list it on Milsim Units so they can find you.