Guild Wars 2 beta coming "in the second half of this year," 2012 release likely

Guild Wars 2 - centaurs afire

NCSoft chief financial officer Jaeho Lee has announced that "Guild Wars 2 will go into beta testing stage in the second half of this year," confirming a statement that appeared in the FAQ section of the Guild Wars 2 a couple of months ago. Lee also dropped heavy hints that Guild Wars 2 is heading for a 2012 release.

Eurogamer picked up the comments in a recent investors conference call, in which Lee said that "starting from year 2012, we believe substantial growth will be driven by new blockbuster titles like [Blade & Soul] and Guild Wars 2," suggesting that the game will come out next year.

Back in January, ArenaNet's Regina Buenaobra said that “the release date continues to be: when the game is ready.” The game's been in development since 2007, but it looks as though we'll have to wait a little while longer.

We saw it recently, and it's shaping up very nicely indeed. Find out more in our Guild Wars 2 preview , and check out the recent fly-through trailer showing off the City of Lion's Arch. There's currently no way to sign up for a beta. We'll let you know when sign-ups begin.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.