Guild Wars goes gold

ArenaNet today announced that Guild Wars has gone gold and will be available nationwide on April 28 for the PC. This is the first game from NCsoft subsidiary ArenaNet, which comprises several ex-employees from Warcraft developer Blizzard.

Guild Wars is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that emphasizes strategy over experience-point hoarding. Players will be able to acquire numerous skills at various points of the game, but can only bring a limited amount into battle. By cleverly combining skills between party members, gamers can unleash powerful spells or counter their opponents' attacks.

The game features campaign-style quests that can be attempted with non-player characters or other human-controlled characters. Guild Wars also features an extensive player-versus-player portion, where teams of characters battle for prestige.

Guild Wars is rated T for Teen and will come in two formats: the $49.99 standard edition and the $79.99 collector's edition, which includes an exclusive weapon, the game's soundtrack, a Logitech headset and three months of Teamspeak, and a book featuring art from the game. Unlike most MMORPGs, Guild Wars will not charge a monthly subscription fee.

For more information on Guild Wars, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.