As stated in a report from IGN, the beta phase for "Halo Wars 2" has been extended by 343 Industries for two days. The beta will now officially end by June 22. This announcement was made official by 343 Industries' Dan Ayoub via a Twitter post. According to the report, the beta was extended due to popular demand from the fans.
It is notable that the beta is only for the Xbox One version and not for the PC version. Speaking to EuroGamer, Ayoub also explained that the final build of the game will not immediately feature cross-platform play between the PC and Xbox One but that it might be featured later on via a patch or DLC expansion.
However, the cause for the delay in cross-platform play is not due to the differences of the Xbox One using a controller and the PC using a keyboard and mouse but simply due to timing issues.
"Cross-play is something we were looking at early on in development," Ayoub explained. "We've been in development since 2014. But as we looked at our timing and our design decisions, we focused on some different things that basically became Xbox Play Anywhere."
Xbox Play Anywhere allows players to use their save files from the Xbox One to the PC and vice versa. Ayoub confirmed that cross-platform play will come when they get the time to do so but at the moment it is not their main priority.
In regards to the official launch date, "Halo Wars 2" will release for the Xbox One on Feb. 21, 2017 but a date for the PC release has yet to be announced. Both versions were initially meant to be released this year but were delayed to 2017 to further enhance several areas of development.
Given how the PC versions of the main "Halo" games tend to launch quite some time after their Xbox 360 or Xbox One counterpart, it may be that the PC version of "Halo Wars 2" will launch months after February or it may be released within weeks given how they are being marketed together.
