via Joystiq


Bad news for folks who've been hotly anticipating NCsoft's upcoming sequel to their subscription-free MMO -- according to a new release schedule buried within an investor finance briefing, the release window for Guild Wars 2 is now a remarkably vague 2010 - 2011. Considering the last tentative launch period for the game we heard was "second half 2008", this 730-day window is more than a little disheartening.

Though they did just suffer a few layoffs and are apparently skipping out of E3, NCsoft isn't exactly economically plagued -- their latest title, Aion, sold like hotcakes in Korea during Q4, bringing in a hefty year-end chunk of change. So, if it's not for financial reasons, what's causing this major delay? Is the Guild Wars 2 dev team taking time off to work on their needlepoint? Are they training for the winter olympics? Are they following in the footsteps of their former colleague and becoming idiosyncratic millionaire cosmonauts? We may never know.