No Guild Wars 2 beta this year

ArenaNet has said Guild Wars 2 will not enter beta testing this year, pushing hopes of a launch into the latter stages of 2009.

The developer said it's unwilling to open the beta as early as it did for Guild Wars 1, because expectations are much higher this time around.

"Although we publicly alpha- and beta-tested the original Guild Wars while it was still in early development, with Guild Wars 2 we will commence beta testing closer to the game's release," reads the recently updated Guild Wars 2 FAQ.

"With that in mind, we will not start beta testing in 2008 as we had originally planned. Guild Wars 2 is a very large and ambitious game, and Guild Wars players rightfully have very high expectations of its quality. We want players to be absolutely blown away by the game the first time they experience it."

Guild Wars 2 was revealed in early 2007, but no screenshots or footage have yet emerged. ArenaNet has previously said it was waiting for Guild Wars: Eye of the North expansion to be released before it ramped up to full production on the sequel.

Guild Wars 2 aims to give you many more levels to climb and races to play as, whilst retaining the no subscription business model and familiar group-versus-group combat that proved so popular in the original game.

Head over to our Guild Wars 2 gamepage to see what ArenaNet had to say about it when the curtain first lifted.