The Steam Listing for Guild Wars 2 now displays an August 23rd release date for ArenaNet's online RPG sequel. The news is illustrated by this new trailer. This date is just days short of the 10th anniversary of the game's launch. That surprisingly long gap was meant to be a bit shorter, but plans to bring it to Steam were put on indefinite hold almost two years ago. The game went free-to-play seven years ago, so it's not clear if a new distribution platform will significantly impact the player-base. But this post expresses hopes this will be the start of a new era:

We want to make the most of the Steam launch, so over the past few months we've been working on improvements to the new player experience. We've improved leveling pacing, updated default options and key binds to be more sensible, added multiple tiers of new achievements that guide players up through level 80, added a free trial for the raptor mount once players reach level 10 (which becomes a permanent unlock after purchasing an expansion), adjusted level-up rewards and Black Lion Instant Level 80 Tickets, updated early game content like world bosses with revised mechanics and tutorials, streamlined dungeon currencies and increased their rewards, made it easier to get into raid content, added accessibility options, improved the player experience in story instances, revamped fractal instabilities, improved raid and Strike Mission rewards and currencies, removed tedious mechanics like equipment repairing, fixed some long-standing content bugs, and implemented DirectX 11 to improve game performance. We also released the first three episodes of Living World Season 1, which gives new players a better understanding of the story as they head into later content. The fourth episode will drop on September 13.

We're happy to report that our metrics show that these changes have made a significant impact, and we'll continue to make additional improvements in the coming months as we monitor the Steam launch. We'll see a steady stream of new players coming into the game from Steam moving forward, so even changes that come after launch will be beneficial. Overall, we're feeling pretty good about the balance we struck between investing in the new player experience and making progress toward developing future content for our veteran players.