Guild Wars 2 closed beta date 16th December

By Robert Purchese Published 15 December, 2011

Candidates being selected "carefully".

ArenaNet has announced that Guild Wars 2 will officially enter closed beta tomorrow - Friday, 16th December.

The news spilled on Reddit from GW2 systems designer Jon Peters, who answered questions from fans.

"We will officially enter Closed Beta Testing this Friday," wrote Peters. "It will be marked with an increase in our pool of testers.

"To clarify, this phase of testing is still under NDA and is not open to the public.

"Based on the feedback we get from our current Closed Beta Testing, we will determine the next phases of our beta program in which we will open beta access to more people."

Guild Wars 2 French community manager Stéphane Lo Presti offered further clarification on the game's forum.

"For the sake of clarity," wrote Presti, "we've talked about closed beta and by that we mean that there is no public information about how to get in, as we're selecting the candidates carefully. We will not reveal any more information apart from what we just said.

"EDIT: to be even clearer," Presti added, "there won't be any web page for getting into the closed beta and we won't reveal how we're selecting candidates."

Guild Wars 2 has no release date nor no open beta date. However, this news could suggest a possible spring release for Guild Wars 2 - that would certainly allow plenty of time for testing.

Yesterday, ArenaNet revealed the final profession/class for Guild Wars 2: the Mesmer.

It's Guild Wars 2; it's the Mesmer.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 5 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • hypoBla5t #1 5 months ago

    WANT

  • arcam #2 5 months ago

    If you're interested in the development of GW2 that whole thread is an excellent read. Reddit delivers again.

  • Spekingur #3 5 months ago

    I always like when carefully is used in an answer you wouldn't normally expect to be in.
    "So how did you find your way down the mountain?"
    "Very carefully."

  • Triggerhappytel #4 5 months ago

    I'm sure Guild Wars 2 will be a great game and I know in the genre it's very anticipated, but is it really wise to roll out the beta just after The Old Republic's staggered launch has begun?

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #5 5 months ago

    @Triggerhappytel Not really as it's a closed beta it doesn't really affect the beta process, they invite X many and then if they don't get that X they'll just invite more until they have the numbers they want to test with.

    TBH I think it helps them more mainly because those selected and choose to test WILL be Guild Wars 2 players as those that want to play SWTOR more will continue to do so and not test thus Arena.net are getting a tester base wanting to play the end product

  • scoop #6 5 months ago

    @Triggerhappytel If they're hand-picking beta testers, I doubt they have much to worry about..it's not like they have to attract sign-ups. Besides that, marketing peeps love press releases that distract attention from the competition.

    I'm in the Old Republic myself, and I'm pretty sure I'll not be playing it when GW2 comes out.

  • hiddenranbir #7 5 months ago

    Well I doubt I'll get in for this then...maybe it is based on GW1 players but I haven't played that in a while and stopped subscribing to newsletters.

    Oh well!

    But the fact it is up to this stage means it won't be too long now. Woohoo!

  • Kanjin #8 5 months ago

    2012 is going to be an excellent year for MMOs.