The HAWKEN Forums announce plans to begin closed beta testing of this mech combat game in two weeks on October 26th (thanks Eurogamer). They offer a pretty extensive FAQ which mostly covers how to get your hands on a beta key, which also says there will be no NDA associated with this testing, so we should be hearing more about the game very soon. Here's word on the testing, which also adjusts expectations for what had been described as the launch of the game on December 12th, now calling this date the beginning of the open beta, though for a free-to-play game, this is probably more a technical distinction than anything. Here's word:

This test will have a much larger tester pool than Alpha 2 and will include participants of our previous tests. Invitations will start to appear as early as this week and can be applied to your account by logging in to PlayHawken.com and clicking "Redeem Code". This will be the first of a series of Closed Beta tests, all of which will allow you to capture footage and screenshots and share them publicly. These Closed Beta tests will lead up to Open Beta on December 12, 2012.