Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns closed beta starts today

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Guild Wars 2 players get a chance to head into the Heart of Thorns this evening—that is, if they've already got a key to enter into the jungle expansion's closed beta. The test consists of three two-hour sessions staggered throughout the day. Players who found a rare portal during last month's Dry Top and Silverwastes events will be able to create a new beta character to test out a small portion of the new expansion.

"Participants will be able to use a revenant—or any of the existing eight professions—to play a small amount of expansion story content, followed by two beta versions of outposts and their corresponding adventures in part of the Verdant Brink map," explains a news post on the Guild Wars 2 site. "An early, partially completed version of the day/night cycle meta-event experience from Verdant Brink will also be available."

ArenaNet says they'll be adding additional participants, picked from email addresses subscribed to the expansion's newsletter.

Here are the times of the closed beta tests:

  • 11:30 am – 1:30 pm PDT / 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm CEST / 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm BST
  • 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm PDT / 12:30 am – 2:30 am CEST / 11:30 pm – 1:30 am BST
  • 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm PDT / 4:30 am – 6:30 am CEST / 3:30 am – 5:30 am BST

For those without access, the test isn't under any NDA restrictions. That means you can expect the beta to be streamed by players during each test window.

Phil Savage
Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.

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