Hundreds of thousands of people have already pre-purchased Guild Wars 2, according to ArenaNet.

Anyone who pre-purchases the game will get full access to all beta weekends on the run up to launch, three days of early access and a Hero’s Band in-game item. The first of these events occurred the last weekend of April.

“The other week we hosted our first Beta Weekend Event,” wrote ArenaNet co-founder Mike O’Brien on the developer’s blog. “When hundreds of thousands of players who pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 got their first chance to play the game.”

“This was a huge milestone for ArenaNet; with no NDAs and no press embargoes, the beta version of Guild Wars 2 would have to stand on its own before the full force of the Internet.”

“I think it’s safe to say,” he added, “that the response was overwhelming in more ways than one.”

We’re not quite sure exactly how many copies this vague statement equates to, but we’re sure it’s more than 200,000 – given the use of a plural. This bodes well for the team considering that an official release date for the game hasn’t even been announced.

Did you pre-purchase?

Source: ArenaNet