Earlier today It was announced that an additional 15 units would be released for Empire Total War next week. However, there will also be another new addition to the historical RTS game at the same time. Publisher Sega announced that the open beta for the long promised multiplayer campaign mode would finally be made available to players on December 7.

How long has the wait been for this feature? Developer The Creative Assembly announced it would add the mode to the game nearly a year ago. Now apparently it's ready for testing with outside players after "over 6 months of internal testing." The mode will allow two players to either fight in 1v1 battles or team up against AI opponents on all of the campaign maps in the game. Sega says the multiplayer campaign feature will be standard in future Total War games.

You must own a copy of Empire: Total War to participate in the beta test. There's supposed to be a sign-up page for the beta on the totalwar.com web site but as of the writing of this article no such page is present.