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Announced in March 2007, Guild Wars 2 is the sequel to the current Guild Wars series of games.

The game is set around 250 years after the events in the original series and is expected to contain several new features, consisting of a more persistent world ( as opposed to mostly instanced ), dynamic questing, a personal branching storyline, and an updated graphics engine.

On the morning of 20 August 2009, ArenaNet released the first trailer for Guild Wars 2 on their website.

Closed in-house beta testing started in December 2011 and press beta weekend events started being rolled out in March 2012.

Beta weekend events began in April 2012 and were open to those who pre-purchased the game, those who received an invite by signing up and those who obtained a beta key from a giveaway.

On 28 June 2012, ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 would be released on 28 August 2012 ; meanwhile, people who pre-purchased the game received a three day headstart and began playing three days earlier, on 25 August 2012.