After the announcement of the God of War: Ascension beta, there hasn't been much info on it from Sony. Finally, today Game Director Todd Papy reminded us that the beta would be accessible if you had a PlayStation Plus account, but mentioned that there is another way to get in. Players will align themselves with one of the four gods during multiplayer, and each god will grant a different set of unlockable powers, armor sets and abilities to players. The first god players can align with is Zeus, so we've got a trailer below detailing the god and his powers.
A new God of War site (fully compatible with iOS and Droid) also just launched today, called GodofWar.com (at the time of writing, the site doesn't appear to be fully launched yet as it just redirects to the UK PlayStation site) The site will provide more information on Zeus and presumably about the other gods as they are detailed. It is using this site that players can get into the Beta without being a PlayStation Plus member. This is also the only way to gain early access.
So how do you do this? With their new graphic-novel style story that offers you "social challenges" and choices. You can also gain 30 says of PlayStation Plus this way. Papy said this is just the first of "multiple major army rewards" between now and March. You can also use this system to gain multiplayer unlockables like armor and weapons.
The Beta will release in Winter. All in all, it's a pretty interesting to get players involved with the game before it's even out. Are you going to play The Rise of the Warrior?