We know your appetite for destruction is growing as we draw closer to Twisted Metal‘s Valentine’s Day release (2/14), so we’re pleased to announce that the Twisted Metal Multiplayer Demo goes live on the PlayStation Store this afternoon!

Once the demo hits the Store, you’ll get a taste of Twisted Metal’s online play with:

• Eight vehicles to choose from, each with their own unique special weapons
• Two multiplayer modes: Classic free-for-all Death Match, and team-based Nuke mode—a Twisted take on Capture the Flag that’s brand new to the series
• Challenge mode, where you can practice with each vehicle to hone your destructive skills

Be sure to try out all the vehicles and modes available in the multiplayer demo and let us know your favorites. Servers will be up today through February 7th, so you’ve got a week to practice before the full game comes out on February 14th. Get killin’!

To celebrate today’s release, Game Director David Jaffe chimed in with answers to some popular user questions. This Q&A relates to the final retail game, not today’s multiplayer demo, but it will give you a closer look at what to expect this February 14th.

Will Twisted Metal feature a Party System for easy play with friends?
100%! The new Twisted Metal supports Party and Clan systems allowing players to easily jump into ranked and unranked matches together. The party system was key, not just because it’s a staple for online games, but because we heard from so many players who came up playing this game with friends (be it as little kids, or college students) and now their crew have scattered across the globe and they were asking us for a fast, easy way to jump into games with friends so they could relive some of those fun memories (and ideally make a lot more new ones)!

Will Twisted Metal have splitscreen coop missions?
Split screen local co-op has been a staple of the series since TM2 and it’s back and better than ever. The campaign that you and a buddy can go through together is more varied than any other TM campaign we’ve done. And the other split screen modes- for 2 to 4 players on the same tv- allow for free for all and team games with lots of host options for players so they can tweak and adjust the game so it always says fresh. In 2 player split the players have 30+ levels to choose from. In 3 and 4 player split, players can choose from 10 battlegrounds.

Is there any gameplay relevance related to the pedestrians in the environments, mechanics and trophies?
Yes to all three questions :). A good example: in the level called BLACK ROCK STADIUM- which is this ‘hi tech meat grinder-meets-Roman Gladiator Colosseum’ players can park their vehicles on pressure plates. Sitting on these plates long enough causes audience members to get ejected from the stands. Each audience member that is ejected is wearing one of two kinds of vests: a vest with a cross on it and a vest with a question mark. Hitting cross vested peds yields health. Hitting mystery peds yields a random weapon pick up.

If you kill an enemy, the drive and gunner eject from the explosion and their burning bodies go running around in terror. After a few seconds they die, but if you can hit the gunner before he dies, you get a random weapon. If you hit the driver before he dies, you get a little extra health.

Which characters are some of the Twisted Metal team’s other favorites?
All of the human characters in the new Twisted made it in mainly because they represent the team’s favorite from a 50+ roster of characters that live in the Twisted Metal universe. So besides Tooth, we’re all big fans of Calypso, Mr. Grimm, Dollface, and Preacher. We also tend to dig No Face and Minion. As for vehicles, we love the cast of vehicles in the new Twisted and that’s a big reason they made the cut. We do miss some of our old friends however, such as Thumper, Pit Viper, Yellow Jacket, Twisted, and Mr. Slam.