Lead content designer on Guild Wars 2, Colin Johanson has told Eurogamer that Guild Wars 2 is on track to go into beta by the end of this year. It's currently in closed friends and family alpha testing. The success of the closed beta phase will decide the date of the open beta, and the eventual release date next year.

"If we tear through the beta and everything's super positive then obviously it'll come out faster. And if we go into the beta process and we see things we want to change, then we have the luxury of having the time to be able to sit down and fix that stuff," said Johanson. "We really don't know when release is going to be, because we want time to react to things and upgrade and everything."

There's no way to register for a place on the beta yet. The best way to keep abreast of beta announcements is to sign up for the Guild Wars 2 newsletter on the official Guild Wars 2 site . Johanson confirms one thing for certain, "we're going to go into closed beta by the end of this year for sure."

Guild Wars 2 got a showing at the Eurogamer Expo this weekend, and RPS have highlighted 40 odd minutes of footage, showing The Cynical Brit's Total Biscuit battling through public quests and a bit of PvP as both a Sylvari Necromancer and a sneaky Norn. You'll find the videos embedded below.