NCSoft today announced that the stand alone follow up to Guild Wars, Guild Wars Fations, will ship worldwide on the 28th of April. The content of the now ubiquotous collectors edition has also been confirmed.

The standard edition will retail at £29.99 with the collectors edition being a much more expensive of £49.99.

Friday 10 March 2006/... ArenaNet®, developer of the award-winning online role-playing game Guild Wars® and NCsoft® Europe, the world's leading publisher of online computer games, announce today the release date of Guild Wars FactionsTM, the hotly anticipated follow-up to Guild Wars. Guild Wars Factions will be available in stores worldwide 28th April 2006.

European players will also have the opportunity to pick up the European Guild Wars Factions Collector's Edition, a special bonus edition that's jam-packed with goodies for Guild Wars fans, including an art book, exclusive in-game signature emotes for the Ritualist and Assassin professions, Jeremy Soule Guild Wars Factions soundtracks, Ritualist cloth picture, Factions desk calendar and mouse mat, among other bonuses.

Guild Wars Factions is the continuation of the epic online battle set forth in Guild Wars, the ground-breaking online role-playing game that took the gaming world by storm in 2005 with its fantastic design, depth of play, and no-subscription-fee model. Guild Wars Factions opens another gateway into the Guild Wars universe, allowing new players to join the community of more than one million gamers already playing Guild Wars and providing veterans with a new world of conflict, combat and thrilling adventure in the mysterious realm of Cantha. As the saga continues, the factions of the empire battle for the realm; players will be able to pledge their allegiance to one of these factions and by their actions determine who the winner will be. While Guild Wars Factions is a standalone product that does not require the Guild Wars to play, gamers with Guild Wars accounts who purchase Factions will be able to play in the both campaigns with their existing characters.

"Guild Wars Factions is an exceptional game that invites players to immerse themselves in a truly epic adventure unlike any they have seen," says Patrick Wyatt, a co-founder of ArenaNet. "The four new mission types create a unique experience that will engage both the role-playing and competitive gamer in cooperative conquest of territories and strategic battles. Set against the landscapes of the visually stunning, Asian-themed continent of Cantha, and with two new characters to choose from - Assassin and Ritualist - Guild Wars Factions will redefine the online RPG experience."

For gamers who can't wait until 28th April to get their hands on a copy of Guild Wars Factions, ArenaNet will be hosting a massive beta test event in which all existing Guild Wars players and their friends are invited to delve into the experiences awaiting them in Cantha.

For more information on Guild Wars Factions please point your browsers towards the official site – www.guildwars.com