Guild Wars 2/Guild Wars: Eye of the North Announced
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Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars Expansion Announced
NCsoft, ArenaNet reveal future plans for high-flying online roleplaying franchise; Guild Wars: Eye of the North scheduled for holiday 2007 release
Bellevue, WA., March 27, 2007 NCsoft® and ArenaNet® today revealed their exciting plans for the future of the hugely successful Guild Wars® franchise. The companies announced that development already is underway on a full sequel to the original Guild Wars games. Guild Wars 2TM will draw from the game mechanics that made the original Guild Wars one of the most popular online games ever and will add a fully persistent world. It was also revealed that, like its predecessors, Guild Wars 2 will not have a subscription fee. No launch date was announced, but the ArenaNet team anticipates that Guild Wars 2 will go into beta sometime in the second half of 2008.
In addition, ArenaNet developers are working on the first true expansion for the Guild Wars franchise, Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM. Due to hit store shelves during the 2007 holiday season, Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM will require at least one of the previous Guild Wars campaigns (PropheciesTM, FactionsTM, or NightfallTM) in order to play. It's a game that will benefit long-time players of the Guild Wars games, with all of the content targeting existing Guild Wars characters.
"We felt it was extremely important to reward those people who have been playing Guild Wars since the game first launched in 2005," said Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet. "Those players have seen three very large campaigns created in a little under two years and so we think it's time to begin filling in the details of the existing world and to provide more content for current characters. We are thrilled to focus our time on something that our players have been asking for."
Set largely in the dungeons and caverns of the lands of Tyria that players first explored in Guild Wars Prophecies, Guild Wars: Eye of the North will have 18 large, multi-level dungeons, 150 new skills across all 10 Guild Wars professions, 10 new Heroes, 40 new armor sets, and even more items, weapons and titles.
And for those looking even further down the road at Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars: Eye of the North will provide a Hall of Monuments where players' accomplishments are memorialized and eventually inherited by their Guild Wars 2 characters, unlocking exclusive items and bonuses in Guild Wars 2.
"It's the payoff we hope players will appreciate as we continue to build on the Guild Wars franchise," said Strain. "We're excited to announce these two new products and we want players to know that Guild Wars has an extremely exciting future in the months and years ahead."
More information on the Guild Wars franchise can be found at http://www.guildwars.com .
About ArenaNet
ArenaNet, located in Bellevue, Washington, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCsoft Corporation. ArenaNet has built a state-of-the-art interactive game network and develops premier multiplayer online games for dedicated game players. ArenaNet's titles, Guild Wars, Guild Wars FactionsTM, and Guild Wars NightfallTM are global online roleplaying games that allow gamers to play with anyone, anytime, and anywhere in the world. More information about ArenaNet can be found at www.arena.net.
About NCsoft Corporation
NCsoft North America is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, with its own development and publishing offices in Texas and California, also works with other NCsoft subsidiaries and third party developers throughout North America to develop and publish innovative online entertainment software products. The company has successfully launched multiple online titles in the last three years and continues to support its franchises, which include Lineage®/Lineage II, City of Heroes®/City of Villains®, Guild Wars/Guild Wars Factions/Guild Wars Nightfall, and Auto Assault®. More information about NCsoft can be found at www.plaync.com.
