Work on Guild Wars 2 began in 2007.[30] It was announced March 27, 2007[31] to coincide with the announcement of the final Guild Wars expansion, which was designed to act as a bridge, in both gameplay and story terms, to Guild Wars 2.[28] The development team abandoned the early open alpha and beta testing which they had used for the Guild Wars game. ArenaNet considered that player expectations for open beta tests of MMORPG had changed, and the beta was no longer used to test the game but to trial a nearly finished game prior to purchase. Beta tests scheduled for 2008[32] were cancelled to ensure Guild Wars 2 had maximum impact and appeal to these players.[21]
In August 2009, two years after the game was first announced, ArenaNet decided the game had reached a state where they were happy to show it to the public.[33] A trailer which mixed animated concept art and in-game footage was released at Gamescom, followed by interviews expanding on the lore of the game world and information about the player races.
In November 2009, NCsoft CEO Jaeho Lee stated the game would most likely not release until 2011, but a closed beta would be made available in 2010.[34] The Q4 2009 shareholders notes further supported this when the CEO stated that "the current development target was the end of 2010 but, Guild Wars 2 likely won't be released until 2011."[35]
A playable demo of the game was made available at Gamescom (19