Tyria will be opening its gates to adventurers by summer's end.
After more than half a year of beta testing, Guild Wars 2 is finally nearing release. ArenaNet president and Guild Wars 2 executive producer Mike O'Brien announced on the ArenaNet blog that the game will be hitting shelves on Tuesday, August 28th.
The game held its first Beta Weekend Event in late April, and a second in early June. Periodic public stress tests were also held, giving ArenaNet a chance to make sure their servers were up to the task of supporting hundreds of thousands of players who had pre-purchased the game. The developers were apparently satisfied; this announcement comes just hours after the latest stress test.
O'Brien says that the beta tests helped the team decide on a final release date. "Through all the long hours and hard decisions, we were bolstered by the knowledge that we were not in this alone," writes O'Brien. "All along you've been there for us, cheering us on, supporting us when we needed it, testing early versions of the game, and above all, giving us your honest feedback every step of the way. Guild Wars 2 is a better game for all of the work that our community has put in."
The developers will spend the remaining time before launch working on optimization, polish, and balance. In the meantime, players have one more Beta Weekend Event to look forward to: the third and final event will take place July 20-22.