It has long been known that Resident Evil Village will feature a multiplayer mode, Resident Evil Re:Verse. Today, the open beta begins, allowing players to experience this online suite in action.

The beta client is available for pre-loading on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, and Xbox One prior to the servers going live today (April 8) at 2pm ET. The beta will run through the same time on Sunday (April 11).

Thankfully, the client is a relatively small 6.5 GB, rather than a huge installation that would take half of the beta window to actually download. Currently, downloading the beta version brings up a friendly server maintenance message. However, the server will be live in a few hours.

Re:Verse itself is a fun mashup of classic Resident Evil characters. Familiar faces like Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, and Leon Kennedy are playable. In the standalone online mode, these classic Resident Evil characters face off in death matches, each slaughtering their enemies with unique weapons and skills.

The game doesn't end when you die; you can resurrect as one of Resident Evil's iconic villains, such as Mr. X or Nemesis, and take revenge on the players who defeated you.

This mode looks chaotic and fun, but the semi-cell-shaded art style is quite controversial among franchise fans. Since this is an open beta, no pre-order key or prior sign-up is required to play. So if you're a little curious about Re: Verse this weekend, it's worth playing it this weekend.

This is not the first time Capcom has bundled an online mode with its latest Resident Evil title. Last year's "Resident Evil 3" remake included access to "Resident Evil: Resistance," but unfortunately the gameplay was frustrating and the servers were prone to crashing. Hopefully that lesson has been learned in Re: Verses.

Meanwhile, "Resident Evil Re: Verses" will be bundled with "Resident Evil 7: Resident Evil Village," but the two games are completely separate. Therefore, if you are only interested in the single-player mode of this franchise, you will have to wait until May 7 to experience "Village" on its own.