ArenaNet was at Pax West this past weekend and held a 45 minute presentation on the future story content for Guild Wars 2. The Icebrood Saga was announced, which will bring players on a new epic adventure to combat the ice Elder Dragon Jormag. Besides that, what else was announced for content and features? Here’s all the good things coming to Guild Wars 2 with the release of the latest living world story.
Heart of Thorns Expansion Comes Free With Every Purchase of Path of Fire
The big announcement for expansions wasn’t that there’s going to be a new one after the Icebrood Saga, which honestly is a little disappointing. However, every purchase of the Path of Fire expansion will now come bundled in with the game’s first one, Heart of Thorns. This is consistent with what most modern MMORPGs do when including older content as part of a current purchase. Heart of Thorns owners who bought the content at launch will also receive compensation with a free gift pack. For players who already own Path of Fire but not Heart of Thorns, it will be added to your account sometime this week. If you haven’t picked up Path of Fire, the current expansion which introduces the awesome mount system, grab yours today here.
Gear/build Templates Are Working and Coming Soon
For players who’ve been wanting and needing a way to change builds and specializations on the fly for their characters, there’s good news. Guild Wars 2 showed off a working system of the build template in action during the presentation. As expected the system looks like it does exactly what players need it to do. Currently, players need to manually switch out traits, specializations and gear before tackling specific content. That’s looking to be a thing of the past. This feature is expected to arrive very soon.
New 10-player Strike Mission Bosses
One of the more exciting features announced at Pax West by Guild Wars 2 was the addition of more group oriented content. Strike Missions sound interesting. These are new 10 player instances where everyone takes on a single boss monster. The cool thing is, the aesthetic and mechanic of the boss fight will organically evolve over time as more content and episodes roll in. This does keep things fresh and increases replay value. It’s also a tad bit difficult, but a good introduction to Raids in Guild Wars 2, according to the developers.
A New World Bosses and Masteries
As players are traversing uncharted territories in the new maps and environments of Grothmar Vallety and Northern Shiverpeaks, it makes sense to populate the world with new boss monsters to fight. It’s been confirmed that players will encounter more than one, and they are structured like traditional world bosses – on a timer with good loot of course. Additionally, you can expect new Masteries to arrive in Episode 1 and 2 of the new Living World saga. These will explore the history and influence of the Spirits of the Wild, the mystic animal deities of the Norn. Thus, if you haven’t played a Norn before it might be a good idea to make an alt and play through the personal story for some background.
Prologue Quest: Bound by Blood
And after all that, Guild Wars 2 players won’t have to wait long to begin the new adventure. Coming on September 17th, everyone who owns the Path of Fire expansion can start the prologue quest for the Icebrood Saga called Bound By Blood. The prologue will serve as a narrative introduction in the characters, setting and the new map before the next conflict arrives. We should also see the more emphasis on the Charr and Norn races of Tyria.
All in all, exciting stuff and times ahead for Guild Wars 2. Want to check out Guild Wars 2 for free right now? Start your adventure in Tyria here.
