Guild Wars 2 beta event next weekend, PC Gamer beta key giveaway incoming

Guild Wars 2

Arenanet have announced that the second beta weekend for Guild Wars 2 will launch next Friday June 8 at 12pm PDT (8pm BST), and will run until Sunday June 10 at 11:58pm PDT (7:58am BST). The developers have been busy bolstering their server architecture after a very popular opening beta weekend last month. If you took part in that beta weekend, you'll be able to jump into next week's with your character intact, and the Ascalonian Catacombs will be available for those that have hit level 35. Have a look at our video run through of the dungeon for an idea of what's in store.

"We take our beta events very seriously in terms of our development strategy," writes lead producer Chris Whiteside on the Arenanet blog . "At ArenaNet, “beta event” means exactly that—it's a development-centric event in which we test our systems, discover new and exciting bugs, and get pivotal feedback from our testers about what is going in the right direction and what isn't."

If you're not on the beta, but would really like to try Guild Wars 2, keep an eye on PCGamer.com. We'll be giving away keys as the next beta weekend approaches. For more on Guild Wars 2, check out our early look at the resourceful Asura , our video adventures in Guild Wars 2's massive world vs. world. vs. world battles and our Guild Wars 2 preview .

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.