GUILD WARS 2 Announces New Story Content Releasing This Month and More in Studio Update
Guild Wars 2 is looking to shake things up! ArenaNet recently shared some of their plans for the future of the popular (and my personal favorite) MMORPG. This included a roadmap for Spring 2023, changes to how expansions will be released, and more. In all honesty, there’s a lot to unpack and I highly recommend you read the entire blog post for yourself. I’ll try to share some of the bigger points and some videos from some of my favorite creators discussing it (be warned there’s a lot of overlap in the videos).
First things first, ArenaNet admits that they’ve really fallen down on the job regarding some parts of Guild Wars 2. They share that in the past, “nearly the entire Guild Wars 2 development team” was working on the various expansions and Living World content and this negatively impacted regular content updates. They’ve decided to make some changes to make things more balanced. These changes will allow more support for PvP, support for WvW, new fractals, new quality-of-life improvements, and more.
This all boils down to the team’s new approach to expansions for the game. Previously, a new expansion like Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, or End of Dragons would be released every 2-4 years with some Living World content released in the interim. Now, smaller expansions will be released more frequently and at reduced prices. These expansions will gain additional content via quarterly updates, so you know that you can expect new content roughly every 3 months. That’s actually very incredible. They then break it down even further where the first part of an expansion will launch the new story arc and include the following:
2 New Open-World Maps
2 New Strike Misisions
New Gameplay & Combat Features
New Masteries
New Rewards
Then, in each quarterly update for that expansion, you’ll get the following:
1 New Open-World Map
Additional Story Chapters
Challenge Modes for Strike Missions
1 New Fractal & Challenge Mode
New Rewards
Additions to New Systems from the Expansion
This sounds like a lot, but also pretty manageable. I’m really curious what will be the new gameplay and combat features as well as the new masteries. I know some are speculating that we’re getting houses now and others are saying that there will be no more new elite specializations released. I genuinely have no idea, so let me know your theories in the comments below.
The team then shares the Spring 2023 roadmap which includes the launch of the first new story content later this month!
February 14: Profession Balance Update, WvW Objective Reward Scaling, Chromium Embedded Framework Upgrade
February 28: New Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons Map and Story Content, Soo-Won Legendary Variant
March 28: Super Adventure Festival
April 18: DX11 Upgrade Complete
May 2: Profession Balance Update
The new story was announced with this description:
With familiar allies like Detective Rama and his hat at your side, you’ll travel to a new location in Cantha and come face-to-face with a deadly foe that resides deep within the Jade Sea. That storyline will conclude a few months later with an update that introduces additional playable space to the map, adds meta-events and boss encounters, and lays the groundwork for future to-be-announced adventures.
When I first read “additional playable space,” my mind read that as race or species and I just about lost it thinking we were getting playable Kodan, Tengu, and/or Quaggan. I still wish they would introduce new races, but I think overall this is a very welcome update for Guild Wars 2. Ever since finishing End of Dragons I’ve been wondering where the story would go and I guess I have less than a month before I get to figure it out. With the new balancing of the development team I hope we see a lot more love for the other game modes. I know that WvW has been getting a lot of love and maybe these changes will finally get me to enjoy it. In short, this update was ArenaNet assuring fans that the game isn’t going anywhere. What’s your big takeaway from the Guild Wars 2 update?