After teasing us earlier this week, the details of the the Thief’s elite specialization has finally been revealed, and it’s called the Daredevil.

The daredevil is a mobile damage dealer who can bring the pain to multiple enemies at once and also has enhanced dodge-roll abilities. To read all about the new abilities check out Karl McLain’s blog post over on the GW2 website.

For anyone who would like to get a chance to see the daredevil in action before they get to try it in the next beta weekend event, be sure to watch the next Points of Interest show on Friday 8/28 at noon PDT on the official GW2 Twitch channel.

The second Beta Weekend Event will be taking place starting at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Friday, September 4, and running until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Sunday, September 6.

Beta weekend events are a large milestone in the development of our expansion, and we can’t wait to play the game with you over the weekend and to continue down the path that brings Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns to release! And while we count down to our second beta weekend, make sure to join us for our massive announcement about Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns live from PAX Prime on Saturday, 29 August, at 5:30 p.m. UTC (10:30 a.m. Pacific Time), broadcast live on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel, or join us in person if you’re attending PAX!

The Burning Legion is back in the next expansion for World of Warcraft, which will raise the level cap to 110 and add a new hero class, Demon Hunter, to the longrunning MMORPG.

It’s called Legion.

At a live presentation at Gamescom in Germany today, Blizzard showed off the new expansion pack, first showing off this Gul’dan-helmed teaser:

And here’s a sizzle reel for the expansion pack’s new features:

Blizzard says before the new expansion even launches, players will have to face hordes of demons in a zone called the Tomb of Sargeras, which will be a familiar name to anyone who’s familiar with Warcraft lore.

The next Legend for Revenants has been revealed and along with it, a new weapon!

A lot of us have been saying for awhile how cool it would be for a profession to get Staff as a melee weapon, and now we got our wish. The newest weapon for Revenants is the Staff and it is used as a melee weapon.

As Roy Cronacher explains in today’s blog post they wanted to turn the normal use of staff on its head the same way they changed up how Revenants use Hammer skills. Their Staff skills will use a mix of martial and magical abilities.

Additionally some of the specifics of how channeling Ventari will work for Revenants was also revealed. All of Ventari’s skills will be powered through his tablet, in fact when you first switch to Legendary Centaur stance you’ll only have the ability to summon the tablet available. After you do that the skill slots will fill out with the rest of the abilities.

The skill Protective Solace forms a barrier around the tablet which destroys enemy projectiles. In the same way as the Hammer skill which keeps two hammers spinning around the Revenant, Protective Solace is the upkeep skill for Staff. Additionally the tablet (and thus the barrier itself) can be moved while it is active.

Just as it might be true that for smartphones, if you can imagine it, “there’s an app for that”, when it comes to modern videogames, often if you can imagine it, “there’s a mod for that” – be it from flooding the majority of the world in Grand Theft Auto 5, to making Thomas the Tank Engine rain from the sky in Skyrim. World of Warcraft is no exception – but perhaps the most interesting mod yet is not an actual game mod, but one modder’s interpretation of a new look for the game.

Recently, a modder named Daniel Luchau decided to give one of the game’s most famous environments – and the hometown of newly created Human characters – a visual facelift through the use of Unreal Engine 4. In order to recreate The Elwynn Forest, Luchau took standard assets as seen in Unreal Engine 4 Tech Demos and combine them with actual models imported from World of Warcraft, though some of the latter’s textures were retouched for better visual splendour. While Luchau is keen to express that his video of the work so far is “an early build” – this only touches the surface of what Unreal Engine 4 can offer and many details and textures still look rough – there are many impressive moments even in the two short minutes of this preview. Outside of Elwynn Forest, players will recognize Goldshire, the second quest town in the area; as well as Westbrook Garrison, with the infamous wanted poster for Hogger outside…

Enough talk, take a look for yourself:

Feel free to head on over to the Forum to let us know what you think 🙂

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.

Here are the times of the closed beta tests:

– 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.