The closed beta’s outcome will ”determine our open beta schedule,” which in turn will ”determine our release date.” They ”really don’t know” when it will retail.
”We’re going to go into closed beta by the end of this year for sure,” affirmed lead content designer Colin Johanson of ArenaNet.
”We’re in closed alpha right now. We’re going to go into closed beta by the end of this year. Based on the outcome of the closed beta, that will determine our open beta schedule. Based on the outcome of the open beta, that’s going to determine our release date.”
”If we tear through the beta and everything’s super positive then obviously it’ll come out faster. And if we go into the beta process and we see things we want to change, then we have the luxury of having the time to be able to sit down and fix that stuff,” he said.
”We really don’t know when release is going to be, because we want time to react to things and upgrade and everything.” ArenaNet aren’t sure of how they plan to execute the open beta portion of the game’s development.
”How we’re going to announce it and how to get into it - we haven’t decided that yet either,” added Johanson. What makes it into the beta phases is also still being decided upon by the studio. Guild Wars 2 is a free-to-play MMO looking to outclass the original.