Guild Wars 2 News

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A new chapter in Tyria's story begins August 22 with the launch of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™, our newest expansion. Soon, you'll be soaring through new maps high in the skies above Tyria, testing your mettle against invaders from the Mists, and mastering new combat options. The adventure continues after launch, with major releases planned every few months that introduce new locations and rewards as they expand the features and continue the story of Secrets of the Obscure.

Visit the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure official site for more details on the expansion features and story.



Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure is available for prepurchase! Pick it up right now through our official web store or from the in-game store, Steam, or official retailers.

Prepurchasing guarantees you the following three rewards: the Demon Hunter title, the Arcane Spellweaver's Hat Skin, and an Eagle Eye weapon skin of your choice. Your prepurchase rewards, as well as any items associated with the expansion edition you buy, will be distributed and available in the game once you apply your Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure registration code to your account. For full details on the items included with the Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate Editions, visit the official store page.





Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure launches August 22, 2023, at approximately 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7). At launch, the first arc of the expansion's epic story, as well as two new maps, will allow players to explore the skies while putting many of the new gameplay features to the test. Major updates, coming out roughly once a quarter following the expansion, will continue the experience with additional story chapters, a new map, and more features and content.

To get a taste of what's in store, check out the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure combat beta weekend, which runs from June 29 to July 2.



The Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure official page has an overview of the full expansion. To accompany today's announcement, we've shared further details on expansion combat systems, story and instanced content, and rewards. You can subscribe to our newsletter for important announcements and keep an eye on the official blog for the latest news!

Today, we're thrilled to announce Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™, a new expansion launching on August 22. New features and content will arrive with the initial release and continue over nearly a year of additional feature and story updates.



If you read our February and May studio update blogs, you've heard us talk about updating our approach to development to provide more consistent updates for both the core game and expansion content. Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure benefits from this new approach. At launch, you'll be able to play through a self-contained story; following launch, this story will be seamlessly expanded upon in updates that come out every few months, telling a second, stand-alone arc.



The story of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure represents the opening of a new chapter: the Elder Dragon cycle that dominated major events from the original launch through Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™ has come to a close. In fact, today's game update includes a small scene to transition out of the End of Dragons storyline. This interlude brings us to a scenic overlook in Seitung Province, where one of our dearest comrades has some...bittersweet news to share.

In the quiet that follows, a new force rises to threaten Tyria. As you fight back against Kryptis invaders from the Mists, you'll uncover the answers to mysteries that have haunted Tyria from the time of the original Guild Wars®. Ancient rivalries come into play—the world is at risk. While we've relied on the aid of our allies in many adventures to date, it's time for you to find your footing in a darker, more mysterious side of the world.

Now that the cycle is "over," Tyria is blood in water. The Mists are watching.

Two explorable zones and the Wizard's Tower outpost, floating high above the Tyrian coast, will be available at launch. In the releases that will follow every few months, a third explorable zone will open in conjunction with the ongoing story that plays out.



The skyscale mount was first introduced in Living World Season 4, following Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™, and it changed the way players navigate maps in Guild Wars 2. We love the freedom and movement options the skyscale offers—which is why we want to make sure it's readily accessible to as many players as possible. As a result, we're adding a new skyscale mount acquisition method with this expansion. Whether or not you own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire or completed the original skyscale collection, Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure will grant you a more streamlined collection to unlock a skyscale of your very own.



Once you've unlocked the skyscale in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, you'll get access to a new skyscale skin collection. Completing that will award you a terrifying and beautiful Kryptis-themed skyscale skin.



Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure skyscale Mastery line includes new abilities, like the Fireball aerial attack you'll unlock at tier two. Some of the new Mastery tiers grant Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire Masteries; in those cases, players who have trained skyscale Masteries from both expansions will get a bonus functionality unlock. For example, the first tier of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure skyscale Mastery grants Air Rescue—the ability to mount in midair. If you've already trained Air Rescue with the Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire Mastery line, you'll now get Bond of Vigor every time you use Air Rescue.

*Names are subject to change.



Two additional Mastery lines will be introduced in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, both of which are closely tied to the expansion's story. As you fight off the ravages of the Kryptis, you'll make allies of the Wizard's Court and the Astral Ward—ancient protectors of Tyria who have been brought out of their seclusion by the Kryptis threat. Through your new allies, you'll gain access to a powerful artifact called the Heart of the Obscure.

With Kryptis forces pouring into Tyria through portals in the Mists, it falls to you and the Astral Ward to track down and close those portals—and deal with any Kryptis that have managed to pass through them. The Heart of the Obscure and Astral Ward Masteries will aid you as you hunt and close rifts throughout Tyria. Together, the two Mastery lines will allow you explore the world more freely, take on greater threats, and earn richer rewards.

The skyscale, Astral Ward, and Heart of the Obscure Mastery lines will all be available at launch on August 22. We're planning to introduce a fourth Mastery line in the first major release following launch.





Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure will bring new challenging content in the form of two new Strike Missions and a Fractal of the Mists, each with an accompanying challenge mode. Both Strike Missions will be part of the August 22 launch; their challenge modes will come out in subsequent releases.

As a side note: We'd be remiss not to mention that today's game update includes a new fractal that you can play right this very moment if you own Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons!

Today's announcement also included information on combat, system changes and rewards. We'll be back with more information about Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure between now and launch. Until then, check out the official page for more details and visit the official store to prepurchase.

Today we announced Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™, a new expansion launching later this year. If you're looking for a high-level overview of the expansion as a whole, check out the official site. We also released a massive balance update today—the full of changes that tee up expansion features. What features are those, you might ask? That's what we're here to cover.



In our spring update blog, we talked about how we're looking for ways to add meaningful combat choices besides adding new elite specializations. With core trait lines and three expansions' worth of elite specializations, each profession already has access to tons of roles and playstyles. For Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, we've focused our efforts on bolstering and refining existing combat systems and removing longstanding limitations to put even more compelling build choices in your hands.



One of the best parts about an expansion release is getting to use a new weapon and weapon skills from elite specializations. Up until now, you could only equip each elite specialization's weapon by locking yourself into that elite specialization's trait line. But what if you could charge into the fray as a hammer-wielding holosmith or control the battlefield as a firebrand with a longbow?

This expansion will introduce Weaponmaster Training, which turns the elite specialization weapons already associated with each profession into core proficiencies. Once you've unlocked Weaponmaster Training in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, you'll be able to use elite specialization weapons without the corresponding trait line equipped. This will be the case even if you haven't trained an elite specialization. That means that even if you don't own the other expansions, you'll be able to mix and match weapons from the elite specializations associated with them. (You'll still need to own the appropriate expansion and fully unlock each elite specialization to make use of its trait line—not to mention getting the signature weapon and armor piece!)

Here are the weapons that will become part of each profession's core proficiencies in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure:

• Guardian: Axe (main hand), sword (off hand), longbow
  
• Revenant: Shield (off hand), greatsword, short bow
  
• Warrior: Dagger (main and off hand), pistol (off hand), torch (off hand)
  
• Engineer: Mace (main hand), sword (main hand), hammer
  
• Ranger: Dagger (main hand), hammer, staff
  
• Thief: Scepter (main hand), rifle, staff
  
• Elementalist: Sword (main hand), warhorn (off hand), hammer
  
• Mesmer: Axe (main hand), dagger (main hand), shield (off hand)
  
• Necromancer: Pistol (main hand), torch (off hand), greatsword
  

As a fun bonus, this means we're also introducing a few new skills for edge cases like berserker's Primal Burst while wielding a dagger, or the untamed's Unleashed Ambush while wielding a staff.

We're excited about the new freedom this will open up for all types of players. If you simply prefer a particular weapon, you'll be free to equip that weapon regardless of your elite specialization. If you like experimenting and optimizing your build, you'll have a ton of new combinations to explore.

You'll be able to try out Weaponmaster Training and combine different weapons and elite specializations during our beta weekend, which will run from June 29 to July 2.





In the same spirit of opening more meaningful build choices, we're excited to be streamlining the rune system with Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure. As they exist in the game today, runes have five tiers of relatively straightforward stat bonuses, and the sixth tier is a wild card that can offer additional bonuses or special effects. The wild card sixth tier arbitrarily linked two build components to a single choice. Keeping with the theme of our combat updates for the expansion, we're splitting those into two separate choices to give players more meaningful control. With the first release on August 22, the sixth tier of each rune set will instead complete the stat bonuses associated with that rune set, and the additional special effects or conditional bonuses will be removed entirely.

But fear not—special bonus effects in combat aren't just going away as a category! We've split them off into their own build component, so you can choose both the stats you want and which special effect is right for your build. Which brings us to...



Starting on August 22, everyone's build will include a relic slot that becomes usable at level 60. Many of the relics that are available to players regardless of expansion ownership will cover the functionality of popular sixth-tier rune bonuses. For example, the Relic of the Trooper's effect is identical to the previous sixth-tier Trooper rune effect: "Remove a condition from each affected ally after using a shout skill." Other core relics have an updated effect compared to the sixth-tier rune they used to be associated with, like the Relic of the Thief: "Upon striking an enemy with a weapon skill that has a cooldown or resource cost, gain 1% strike damage for 6 seconds, up to a maximum of 5 stacks, and refresh duration of all stacks to 6 seconds."

Generally, you'll be able to get relics through crafting, instanced content like Fractals of the Mists and Strike Missions, reward tracks, achievements, and more. To celebrate the new system, we'll distribute a relic selection box to all players at launch.

Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure owners can look forward to expansion-exclusive relics as well—some of these will become available at launch, with others to follow in subsequent releases.





To round off our combat systems updates, we're granting each profession proficiency with an additional weapon. Like we said earlier: getting to play with a new weapon and changing out your first five skills is one of the most impactful parts of an elite specialization for many players. The weapons and weapon skills we're introducing to each profession in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure are meant to satisfy that same itch of a new skillset—we just focused on making these weapons fit in with the existing trait lines.

This is planned for the second major release after launch (and we're aiming to ship those major releases quarterly). We'll have more details about the style of play associated with these weapons as we get closer to this feature shipping, and later this year we'll have a beta for you to preview the changes. For now, here's the lineup of who's getting what:

• Guardian: Pistol (main and off hand)
  
• Revenant: Scepter (main hand)
  
• Warrior: Staff
  
• Engineer: Short bow
  
• Ranger: Mace (main and off hand)
  
• Thief: Axe (main hand)
  
• Elementalist: Pistol (main hand)
  
• Mesmer: Rifle
  
• Necromancer: Sword (main and off hand)
  

This weekend (June 29–July 2), we'll be previewing Weaponmaster Training! Anyone with a Guild Wars 2 account in good standing—including Play for Free accounts—can create a beta character and take the changes out for a spin to see how they feel. Hungry for more Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure info? Check out our blogs from today on story, systems, and rewards. And keep an eye out for more news between now and the launch on August 22!

Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure™, our new expansion, begins on August 22. As part of today's announcement, we've got an official page with a high-level view of the expansion as a whole plus deep dives into combat system changes, story, and instanced content. And in this blog, you'll find information about some of the rewards waiting for you in the expansion.





Your journeys in the expansion will bring you face-to-face with the Wizard’s Court, a group of powerful magic-users who live high in the skies above Tyria. For over a millennium, the Wizard’s Court has amassed a large trove of riches and curiosities in their private vault, nestled safely in their mysterious floating tower in the sky. Now relieved from their long isolation, the Wizards are hungry for knowledge of the world they’ve dedicated themselves to protecting and are willing to share some of their bounty with you…in exchange for a favor or two.

The Wizard’s Vault is a new streamlined rewards system that combines the best elements of the daily login and daily achievement systems, allowing you to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to–whether it’s PvE, Player vs Player, or World vs World, or a mix–and earn a wide variety of exciting rewards for doing so.



With the release of Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure, you’ll receive new objectives to complete daily, weekly, and with each quarterly release. As you complete objectives you’ll earn Astral Acclaim, a new account-wide currency, which can be exchanged for rewards of your choosing, such as new weapons and armor skins, a small selection of items previously exclusive to the gem store, crafting materials, gold, mystic coins, legendary crafting starter kits, and more. Those rewards will refresh on a quarterly basis—but fear not! As new items cycle in, any Wizard's Vault–exclusive rewards will simply move into a legacy section of the vault, where they'll remain available for the same type of currency indefinitely. Our goal is for Wizard's Vault rewards are meant to be attainable through regular, normal play; there are no paid upgrades or progression skips, and the legacy section exists to take the time pressure off and allow players to catch up if they take a break.

Some Wizard's Vault tasks and rewards are exclusive to Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure, but all accounts with a level 80 character will have access to the feature.



On August 22, two new armor sets will become available. The first, the Astral Ward armor, is thematically tied to the story of Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure and shares the same appearance for all three armor weights. The second set, Rift Hunter's armor, has unique looks for each weight. A third set will be released after launch.

Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure will also introduce a new set of legendary armor: Obsidian armor. This will be the first set that doesn't require heavy investment into raids or competitive experiences—instead, the various crafting components come from open-world gameplay in Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure.



The new legendary armor set is planned for release in the second major update following the expansion's launch. You'll be able to begin working toward it on August 22, though—crucial components will be available to acquire, and you'll be able to start training your Astral Ward Masteries to unlock crafting recipes. Part of the necessary steps for completing your legendary armor will be completing the Astral Ward and Rift Hunter's armor collections.

Beyond that, the expansion is rife with rewards that will be available at launch and over time. If you're prepurchasing the expansion, you'll get a weapon choice box that will get you started on the Eagle Eye weapon set—one of three upgradeable, two-tier weapon sets coming in Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure. On top of that, we've got new unique weapon skins, armor pieces, and back items coming on August 22 and in following releases.

We'll have more details on other types of rewards like miniatures, emotes, infusions, tonics, new fish, and more as we get closer to launch,but check out today’s story blog to learn how you’ll be able to unlock a skyscale mount skin reward. You’ll find even more details about Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure in our combat systems blog and on our official site.

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Log into Guild Wars 2 and press 'O' to access the Black Lion Trading Company for these great offers and more!