Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns closed beta starts today

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.

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.

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.