So this was a bit sudden; ArenaNet have just announced that Guild Wars 2 is available to play on Mac OS X, not in the future, but right this very second. It’s not the official release, not yet, but the beta client is available to download immediately, and shares servers with the PC game, so if you know anyone lamenting that they can’t join in this year’s biggest MMO because of their operating system, you can now invite them over.
It’s still very much in development, but those who adopt the Mac client early will be helping ArenaNet to beta test it, ironing out all the bugs and making sure that things like flying Engineers don’t happen all that often.
The port of the game was made in partnership with TransGaming, who have a technology called Cider which allows ArenaNet to mirror the experience as much as is possible between PC and Mac, and also means future updates to the game can go out simultaneously on both platforms.
For an MMO that was already doing gangbusters, this is only going to push it into a more stratospheric position at the top of the pile. It’s at 2 million copies, and this will no doubt push it a little closer to three.
If you’ve got a Mac and want to download the client, you can go to here and just click ‘Download Client’, although you’ll need a copy of the game. That would help.