June 19^th, 2006 (11:21am) - NCsoft® Europe can proudly announce that the Guild Wars® franchise has sold more than two million units worldwide to date.

"We’re incredibly pleased with Guild Wars’ performance in Europe," said Max Brown, European Sales & Operations Director. "Guild Wars Prophecies was number one for 6 weeks when it launched in April 2005 now we are back with Guild Wars Factions which went number one all across Europe in its week of launch. The interesting thing we are seeing now is that Guild Wars Prophecies is back in the top ten, so the success of Guild Wars Factions is driving sales of Guild Wars Prophecies. The Guild Wars franchise offers tremendous value for money and the reappearance in the charts is a reflection of this."

When the first installment in this award-winning series launched in April 2005, it revolutionised online gaming and went straight to the top of the charts in countries all over the world. Not one to sit on its laurels, ArenaNet’s follow-up – the highly-anticipated Guild Wars Factions, released April 28, 2006 – was the number one game in both North America and Europe for the month of May.

"ArenaNet continues to take chances in both game design and business model, and it’s great to have the fans respond so enthusiastically right out of the gate with Guild Wars Factions," says Patrick Wyatt, co-founder of ArenaNet. "Our fans have been overwhelmingly supportive of Guild Wars and we will continue to make the Guild Wars franchise bigger and better with each release."

Guild Wars and Guild Wars Factions are global online role-playing games in which players immerse themselves in a rich fantasy world, build personalised characters, compete in head-to-head battles with players from around the world and find adventure in missions and quests. In the game that has captivated millions of players, more than 7000 guilds worldwide are currently competing in the Guild Wars Factions tournament season, the finalists of which will be flown to Leipzig, Germany in August to compete for more than $100,000 in cash and prizes.

For the complete tournament rules, as well as information on both games, please visit http://eu.guildwars.com