Guild Wars 2

Gameplay

Guild Wars 2 allows a player to create a character from a combination of five races and nine professions. The five races are the humans, the charr (introduced in Prophecies), the asura and the norn (introduced in Eye of the North), and the sylvari, a race exclusive to Guild Wars 2. The professions are divided into armor classes: "scholars" with light armor, "adventurers" with medium armor, and "soldiers" with heavy armor — five of the professions make a reappearance from Guild Wars. There is no dedicated healing class as the developers felt that making it necessary for every party to have a healer was restrictive.

The race and profession of the player determines the skills they can access. Guild Wars 2, like Guild Wars, uses a skill-based combat system, whereby players must select only 10 skills from a much larger pool, introducing an element of strategy. However, unlike Guild Wars, skill slots have predefined roles: the first five are determined by player's weapon and profession, the sixth is for healing, the seventh through ninth will be skills with no defined roles that are unlocked as the game progresses, and the tenth slot will be for an "elite" skill, which is also initially locked. In a departure from the high number of skills present in Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 will focus on quality of skills over quantity and attempt to minimize skill splits across game modes to reduce balancing complexity — one of the most common issues present in MMORPGs.

The low level cap of Guild Wars (20) was replaced with one at 80, which the developers stated struck the correct balance between allowing for character development and avoiding forcing players into the grind-based gameplay that too often accompanies a high level cap, the elimination of which was a core design principle of the original Guild Wars. Player versus environment features a scaling system that lowers the players level and stats to reflect the levels of monsters, thereby maintaining a global level of difficulty. In player versus player, a player will have access to almost all skills and items and compete at the fixed level 80, so that all players will be on a level playing field.

In addition to a small-scale, tactical combat PvP, the game features "World versus World", large scale combat taking place in a persistent world independent of the main world. Players are able to drop in and out "on the fly" and possess the ability to construct siege weapons, with rewards commensurate with their success. Guild Wars 2 offers eight crafting disciplines, allowing the player to practice two at a time, with a fee for switching. While there are basic recipes to follow, the player can experiment with different combinations of ingredients to discover new recipes. As the game is set 250 years after its predecessor, players are unable to carry over their characters. There are, however, a small number of achievements and honors earned in Guild Wars which are carried over to Guild Wars 2. The accounts of both games must be linked in order to acquire these bonuses.

Plot

Setting

Guild Wars 2 takes place in the high fantasy world of Tyria, 250 years after the players' defeat of the Great Destroyer in the Eye of the North expansion. Five 'Elder Dragons' sleeping beneath the continent have awoken in the time since Guild Wars, causing widespread destruction to Tyria and corrupting its inhabitants. The once dominant humans of Tyria are in decline, supplanted from most of their land by natural disasters and war with the Charr, who have finally reclaimed the last vestiges of their ancestral homeland of Ascalon from the humans. To the north, the Norn, a proud race of Nordic hunters, have been forced south by the rise of Jormag, the elder dragon of ice. In the west, the technologically advanced Asura have been forced to establish permanent homes above-ground after the minions of the first dragon to awaken, Primordus, took control of the Depths of Tyria. Near the forests where the Asura make their home are the Sylvari, a new race who have appeared in Tyria in the last 25 years, unaffected by the difficulties that plague the other races but with some as yet unexplained connection to the Elder Dragons.

To the south, the continent of Cantha has been cut off by an isolationist and xenophobic political climate, which is reinforced by Zhaitan's undead navy. The continent of Elona, too, has been cut off; the only hint of its continued prosperity being the ongoing battle between the lich Palawa Joko's Mordant Crescent and Kralkatorrik, the crystal dragon in the Crystal Desert, as well as occasional spy reports from the secretive Order of Whispers. The Battle Isles have been wiped off the map entirely by the tidal wave caused by the re-emergence of the fallen kingdom of Orr, which came with the awakening of Zhaitan.

The advancement of time from Guild Wars is reflected in the changes in culture, including armor and clothing, as well as in the advancement of in-game technology and a unified common language.

Plot (The Elder Dragon Saga)

Guild Wars 2 features an expansive storyline called 'The Elder Dragon Saga', a story that is told through the first three expansions and 'Living World' seasons: replayable live content updates that continue storylines in an episodic format, bridging the gap between expansions. The Elder Dragon Saga plot line starts with the original game and concludes in the expansion End of Dragons (2022).

In the core game, the player character is tasked with reuniting the members of the disbanded Destiny's Edge, a multi-racial adventuring guild whose members' struggles and eventual reunion serve as a microcosmic metaphor for the larger-scale unification of the playable races and their groups into "The Pact", whose combined strength is needed to effectively combat and defeat Zhaitan, the undead Elder Dragon.

After the defeat of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan in the game's core story, the player character meets and forms together a new group of characters to battle the enigmatic and insane Sylvari, Scarlet Briar, as she creates strange enemy groups such as the "Molten Alliance" (a team-up between evil Charr and mole-like Dredge), the "Toxic Alliance" (a combination of lizard-like Krait and a splinter group from the "Nightmare Court", a group of evil Sylvari), and the "Aetherblades", a group of steampunk sky pirates. As the player and their new group of heroes, made up of characters from each race, battle Scarlet, they also learn about her past and investigate what she could be searching for. The season culminates with Scarlet attacking the main player city of Lion's Arch, landing a giant drill known as "The Breachmaker" in the center of the city. The player and their fellow heroes fight back and kill Scarlet, but not before Lion's Arch is left in ruins, and the Breachmaker pierces a magical Ley Line, awakening a previously unknown Elder Dragon, Mordremoth; the jungle dragon.

Season 2 of the "Living World" picks up where Season 1 left off, sending the player towards the Maguuma Wastes to battle Mordremoth with the help of their fellow heroes and Destiny's Edge. The season begins with the unexpected explosion and crash landing of the "Zephyr Sanctum", a group of airships populated by the "Zephyrites", followers of Kralkatorrik's deceased dragon champion and daughter, Glint, who had escaped from his control and had tried to help Destiny's Edge kill him before the events of the game (see tie in novel, "Guild Wars 2: Destiny's Edge"). The player and their allies follow Scarlet Briar's path into Dry Top, a region to the west, and learn about the Elder Dragons and the motivations for her destructive conquest in Season 1. The player also learns that Zephyrites were transporting an egg laid by Glint before her death and go in search of it. At the end of the season, the Pact prepare once again to battle an Elder Dragon. However, while the player continues to hunt down Glint's Egg and learns that the Sylvari race are in fact minions of the Jungle dragon, the Pact fleet is destroyed over the jungle by a devastating attack by Mordremoth.

Plot (Post-Elder Dragon Saga)

With the conclusion of the Elder Dragon Saga in the expansion End of Dragons (2022), it was announced that future storylines would be self-contained and feature characters, settings and plotlines that would be introduced and conclude in their respective expansions.

Development

The decision to start creating Guild Wars 2 began in a design meeting for Guild Wars Utopia, back when the company was releasing campaigns on a sixth-month development cycle. The team realised that they would not be able to do everything they wanted within the constraints of the scope that they had previously defined for campaigns and the limited amount of time available to them, and at the behest of Jeff Strain, found themselves discussing how the continued addition of features and content in stand-alone campaigns was leading to more bloated tutorials and difficulty in balancing the ever-increasing number of skills. Eventually, the discussion evolved into a blueprint for an entirely new game.

Work on Guild Wars 2 began in 2007. It was announced March 27, 2007 to coincide with the announcement of the final Guild Wars expansion, which was designed to act as a bridge, in both gameplay and story terms, to Guild Wars 2. The development team abandoned the early open alpha and beta testing which they had used for the Guild Wars game. ArenaNet considered that player expectations for open beta tests of MMORPG had changed, and the beta was no longer used to test the game but to trial a nearly finished game prior to purchase. Beta tests scheduled for 2008 were cancelled to ensure Guild Wars 2 had maximum impact and appeal to these players. Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified version of the proprietary game engine developed for Guild Wars by ArenaNet. The modifications to the engine include real-time 3D environments, enhanced graphics and animations and the use of the Havok physics system. The developers say the engine now does justice to the game's critically acclaimed concept art, and that concept art will be integrated into the way the story is told to the player.

In August 2009, two years after the game was first announced, ArenaNet decided the game had reached a state where they were happy to show it to the public. A trailer which mixed animated concept art and in-game footage was released at Gamescom, followed by interviews expanding on the lore of the game world and information about the player races.

In November 2009, NCsoft CEO Jaeho Lee stated the game would most likely not release until 2011, but a closed beta would be made available in 2010. The Q4 2009 shareholders notes further supported this when the CEO stated that "the current development target was the end of 2010 but, Guild Wars 2 likely won't be released until 2011." A playable demo of the game was made available at Gamescom (August 19–22, 2010), Penny Arcade Expo (September 3–5, 2010) and Paris Games Week (October 27-November 1, 2010). The game was developed for Microsoft Windows with a "very small team" investigating the possibility of a console version.

Post-launch development

Guild Wars 2 originally received content updates every two weeks, but now plans large releases every few months, with smaller patches and bug fixes between these. Content updates regularly contain new items available for purchase in the gem store, as well as offering unique events for players to engage in. Some content updates introduce new mechanics to the game, such as the addition of new dungeons or the introduction of new combat options.

In the Lost Shores content updates released on November 16, 2012, a new dungeon was added to the game. Called Fractals of the Mists, the new dungeon differs from other dungeons in the game by consisting of many smaller "mini-dungeons" called Fractals. Each fractal contains its own story and environment and must be completed in order to move on to the next randomly chosen fractal. Once three fractals are completed, a new set of fractals is unlocked that offer a greater challenge than the last. This update also introduced a new rarity level for equipment called Ascended which can be acquired through various sources, though most easily through the Fractals of the Mists dungeon.

The Flame and Frost: Prelude update released on January 28, 2013, introduced several new features to Guild Wars 2, including achievement laurels, guesting and new "living story" content. Achievement laurels are rewarded for earning daily and monthly achievements and may be used by players to purchase items from certain vendors such as Ascended equipment and infusions for that equipment. Guesting was introduced to allow players to temporarily play on the same server as their friends, without having to transfer their home to a new server. In conjunction with this new feature, a gem fee was added for players wishing to transfer their home to another server. The final new feature added during this update was the introduction of Living Story content. The living story in Guild Wars 2 consists of a series of events and other content that players must progress through within a certain amount of time. Once this time has passed, the story progresses and new content is unlocked while the previous content becomes unavailable, though the story's effect on the world remains. Living World content is intended to provide a continuing story thread for players to follow.

The two following content updates, Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm and Flame and Frost: The Razing, released in February and March 2013 respectively added guild missions, introduced a new progression system for Guild Wars 2's WvW game mode, progressed the Flame and Frost living story narrative and introduced content that set up story elements for future living story narratives. Guild missions introduced the ability for guilds to earn guild merits by engaging in bounties and group puzzles Guild leaders can use merits to unlock rewards for their guild. The new WvW progressions system introduced World XP and new WvW ranks, which can be used to unlock new titles and abilities exclusive to WvW. New WvW achievements were also introduced.

Heart of Thorns expansion

On January 24, 2015, at PAX South held in San Antonio, ArenaNet announced the first expansion for the game titled Heart of Thorns. The expansion introduced new group challenges, new profession specializations, a new profession, and an account-based "mastery" system for character progression through the new territories featured in it, as well as changes to current player versus player content. It was released on October 23, 2015, to positive reviews.

With the second of the Living World seasons over and an expansion on the way, releases were smaller as teasers for the expansion were released. On January 27, 2015, a number of bug fixes and balance improvements were released. Following that, a small scale Festival was released on February 10, 2015, called the Lunar New Year. This update included a relaunch of an older activity called Dragon Ball, featuring reworked gameplay, as well as new Daily Lunar New Year achievements and new rewards.

On August 29, 2015, the base game was made free to download. The free version of the game includes some restrictions over the core game, such as fewer character slots and some chat limitations.

The first episode of the 3rd season of the Living World was announced on July 12, 2016. Entitled Out of the Shadows, it was released on July 26, 2016, containing a new story instance and map with related achievements, a new PvP map with related achievements, a new fractal, some tweaks to the PvP and WvW game modes, and a number of balance changes.

Path of Fire expansion

Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire is the second expansion pack for Guild Wars 2. It was made available for pre-purchase on August 1, 2017, and released on September 22, 2017. The expansion introduces new features such as mounts, additional elite specializations for each profession, a bounty system for defeating certain enemies, and access to the areas of the Crystal Desert and Elona (first seen in the first game's Guild Wars Nightfall expansion). It will also introduce new raids and season four of the living world storyline.

Living World Season 4 refers to a schedule of content updates, beginning on November 28, 2017. It continues the story of Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, picking up immediately where the story instance Small Victory (Epilogue) left off. It included six new open world zones, new mounts, raids, fractal dungeons, as well as new PvP arenas. The story tells the consequences of the Path of Fire events and a new threat from the Elder Dragon of Crystal and Fury.

The Icebrood Saga is the fifth Living World series of content and story releases. It was announced at PAX West 2019 with a live presentation at Moore Theater in Seattle, Washington on August 30, 2019. Announced features included new playable zones with expansive meta-events, a new fractal dungeon, as well as new types of instanced content, Strike Missions and Dragon Response Missions. The new story chapters focus on the norn and the charr as they defend their homelands from the threat of the Elder Dragon of Ice and Persuasion.

End of Dragons expansion and new release format

The third expansion was announced on March 12, 2020. The name, Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons, and a teaser trailer were revealed on August 25, 2020. It was made available for pre-purchase on July 27, 2021, and then released on February 28, 2022. It includes a new story and maps set in the southern region of Cantha (first seen in the first game's Guild Wars Factions expansion), additional elite specializations for each profession, the first multiplayer mount, skiffs, fishing, challenging Strike Missions, as well as additional mastery types. On March 22, it was announced that End of Dragons had outsold the previous expansion Path of Fire, with the active player count more than doubling over the last three years.

In February 2023, it was announced that future Guild Wars 2 expansions and content would be adopting a new release model, with the aim of providing more support for popular game modes and making frequent quality-of-life improvements to core gameplay systems such as professions. Instead of launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, smaller expansions would be released more frequently at a slightly reduced price. Additional content for these expansions would then be added through quarterly updates.

The first release in the End of Dragons expansion cycle was released on February 28, 2023, exactly one year after the initial End of Dragon's release. It brought with it a new open-world map and additional story chapters.

Steam release

On August 16, 2022, it was announced that Guild Wars 2 will be releasing on Steam as part of the game's 10th anniversary celebration. Steam players are able to experience the core Guild Wars 2 game for free (with the same restrictions applied to free accounts created on GuildWars2.com), with options to upgrade to Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, and Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons from day one. A separate 'Complete Collection' bundle that includes all three expansions and Living World Seasons 2 through 5 for one price was also made available. The game was released on Steam on August 23, 2022.

Secrets of the Obscure expansion

A fourth expansion alongside future 'post-End of Dragons story updates' was announced on March 22, 2022. On June 27, 2023, the name of the expansion, Secrets of the Obscure was announced. The expansion centered on the Wizard's Tower, a long-standing mystery in Guild Wars lore, and the introduction of the Wizard Court, an ancient secretive organization battling incursions of creatures from the Mists. It was released on August 22, 2023. The expansion introduced new features, such as the Relic system for character customization and two new vertical exploration zones, Skywatch Archipelago and Amnytas. Updates to gameplay mechanics included streamlined access to elite specializations and revisions to existing content like Strike Missions. ArenaNet adopted a new release model, providing smaller, regular updates to expand upon the initial launch.

Following the launch release, the game received 3 additional large additional content updates, which continued the expansion story and added an additional zone, Inner Nayos. Critics noted the expansion's emphasis on post-launch support and its integration of gameplay mechanics with narrative themes.

Janthir Wilds expansion

The fifth expansion, titled Janthir Wilds was released on August 20, 2024. It was officially revealed on June 4, 2024, and released on August 20, 2024. The expansion introduces the uncharted region of Janthir, a land steeped in the history of the Mursaat and their White Mantle followers.

Key features of the expansion include the introduction of Homesteads, a customizable player housing system, and the addition of spears as a new terrestrial weapon type for all professions. Two new open-world maps were added at launch, with additional maps and story content released in quarterly updates. The expansion also features new group content, including the first new raid wing since Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire and fractals, as well as updates to the Warclaw mount and new masteries.

Visions of Eternity expansion

A sixth expansion for Guild Wars 2 was announced on July 15, 2025, titled Visions of Eternity, set to launch on October 28, 2025. The new expansion focuses on the mysterious island of Castora, long thought to be inaccessible, and the covert operations of the Inquest seeking its secrets. The expansion features two new open-world regions at launch, with two additional maps to be released throughout the year. Visions of Eternity introduced new elite specializations for all nine professions for the first time since End of Dragons, featuring all new trait lines and mechanics, though this time without the ability to use a new weapon. The expansion also enhances the skimmer mount with updated abilities. The expansion promises a year of story chapters and three major content updates, similar in structure to previous expansions Secrets of the Obscure and Janthir Wilds.

As a part of the announcement, it was announced that in a future game update in 2026 that raids and strikes will be unified under a streamlined structure, aiming to improve accessibility of the game modes for new players.

Reception

Guild Wars 2 was released to universal acclaim. It received a score of 90/100 on Metacritic.

PC Gamer's Chris Thursten gave the game a 94% rating, calling it "an accomplished and rewarding online RPG that does a great deal to reclaim the promise of its genre." IGN's Charles Onyett rated the game a 9/10, commenting that the game is "one of the most exhaustively detailed and rewarding MMOs in existence, one that never unfairly penalizes and fosters an incredible urge to explore through a generous reward system and achingly pretty environment design". GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd opened his review with "Guild Wars 2 is a paradise for explorers and thrill-seekers alike, and the best online role-playing game in years" and gave the game a 9.0/10. Computer and Video Games Games Editor Andy Kelly gave a verdict of 8.9/10 closing with "An entertaining MMO that combats the dreaded grind with smart design. The lack of a monthly subscription fee only sweetens the deal." GamesRadar's Hollander Cooper wrote in his review, "Everything a massively-multiplayer online RPG should be. It's original, massive in scope, and wonderfully social, removing many of the gates that held back the genre in the past. Being able to play with friends regardless of level or class is a gigantic leap forward, and one that, when mixed in with all of the other innovations in the genre, make Guild Wars 2 one of the best MMOs currently available." and giving it 4.5/5 and GameSpy's Leif Johnson wrote, "To Guild Wars 2's credit, its issues do little to detract from the immensely rewarding experience of the whole. It doesn't overthrow the conventions of the MMORPG, but it presents them in fresher and livelier packaging than its competitors."

Time listed Guild Wars 2 as the top video game of 2012. Editor Matt Peckham noted that "Guild Wars 2 is one of those rare games that unexpectedly knocks your life off-kilter, like a meteoroid banging into a satellite"... [It has] the feel of a living world, and the sort of compulsive anywhere-you-go playability other MMOs only dream of."

During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Guild Wars 2 for "Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year".