‘The Guild’ Renewed by Microsoft for Season 5

Guildies the world over can now breathe a sigh of relief. After months of debate over the cliffhanger-y end of season 4, Microsoft officially announced today that season 5 of The Guild is indeed going to be a reality and that the show will return to Xbox Live, MSN Video and the Zune Marketplace during Summer of 2011, sponsored by Microsoft and Sprint.

“I’ve never been more excited for anything. Take that Christmas 1989,” exclaimed show director Sean Becker (several exclamation points have been removed in editing). “I’m really excited for the renewal of season 5. I think this decision could really turn Microsoft into a household name.”

All joking aside, with season 5, The Guild continues to hold on to it’s rep as the “Gold Standard” of web series, often used by content creators as a guide and inspiration for how to successfully launch, extend, and build a community behind a property on the web. With over 100 million views and truckloads of awards under its belt, The Guild train is running full steam and showing no signs of slowing. “Every season has had a different style and sensibility. That has been on purpose,” explained show creator Felicia Day to us via e-mail. “We’re always exploring different aspects of our characters. This season will be no different!”

“Every season we look to raise the bar on this world Felicia has created and this season is no different,” continued Becker. “The convention based story line will allow us to take these characters further out into the unknown (meaning away from their computers), which will be new to us as well on the production side. I look forward to personally exploring this new environment as well as seeing the characters interact in it. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and by fun I mean extremely hard work.”

Added Felicia: “Expect more characters, more color more…fast quips! I’m not sure, let me write the season first.”