Guild Wars 2 News

Hello, Guild Wars community,

Before our holiday break, we wrapped up 2022 by reflecting on what a fantastic year it was for Guild Wars 2. In the time between that studio update and New Year's Day, Guild Wars 2 and the ArenaNet team earned several end-of-year awards from top gaming press, including PC Gamer's Best Ongoing Game, MMORPG's Player's Choice MMORPG of the Year, and MassivelyOP's Best MMO Studio (two years in a row!), Best MMO Expansion, and Best MMO Business Model. Those were some exciting presents to unwrap! Again, a heartfelt thank you to our fantastic community for helping make last year the success that it was. Let's do it again.

We closed the December Studio Update with a promise that we'd be back in early 2023 to talk about our long-term plans for Guild Wars 2. Today, we'll be talking about some big changes we're making to how we develop and deliver new content and features, including our approach to expansions, and we'll share our next development roadmap. This blog is absolutely jam-packed with information, so let's dig in.



Since 2021, we've put a renewed emphasis on developing Guild Wars 2 with a player-centric approach, where step one in our development process is to seek out and understand the problems and frustrations that MMO players face. This approach was first adopted at ArenaNet over 20 years ago and is at the core of the continued success of the Guild Wars® franchise.

The conclusion of the Elder Dragon saga, a story told over the course of a decade, was an opportunity for our team to reflect on our past before moving forward. We evaluated what has and hasn't worked over the years and used those insights to redefine how we develop and release content for our players. Our goals for the next phase of Guild Wars 2 are simple—we want to deliver content updates in a more timely and consistent manner, and we want to provide better support for the wide variety of systems and game modes that make up the Guild Wars 2 experience.

Having the development bandwidth needed to iterate on core systems is especially important to us, and it's something we've been making headway on over the last year with our quality-of-life improvement initiative. There are so many systems in Guild Wars 2 that have good bones, and they can be even better with just a bit of love.



The first step toward accomplishing these goals was to rebalance how we allocate our development resources across the project. Historically, with few exceptions, Living World seasons have required the focus of nearly the entire Guild Wars 2 development team to deliver them at the size, quality, and cadence that our players expect. This made it difficult to simultaneously develop expansions while supporting the game with regular content updates. It also meant that many areas of the game went undersupported.

In the next phase of Guild Wars 2's development, we're taking a more balanced approach that will allow us to provide more support for popular game modes, make frequent quality-of-life improvements to core gameplay systems like professions, deliver new features, and expand the world of Tyria with satisfying, immersive story updates.



Our future expansions for Guild Wars 2 will be the backbone of this new approach. Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we'll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price and adding additional content for those expansions through quarterly updates, meaning that the next big release is only ever a few months away.

The first release in an expansion cycle is the launch point for a new story arc, bringing with it two new open-world maps, two Strike Missions, new gameplay and combat features, new Masteries, and new rewards. In the following quarterly updates, we'll add another open-world map, additional story chapters, challenge modes for the Strike Missions, a new fractal dungeon and challenge mode, new rewards, and additions to the new systems introduced in that expansion. Once that expansion's story is complete, the next expansion will be just around the corner.



The next chapter of Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons arrives on February 28. 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. Unlike a Living World release, all owners of Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons will gain access to this content, meaning there’s no pressure to log in to unlock it and no gem cost for missed story chapter unlocks.



In the first half of the year, we'll release the Soo-Won legendary weapon skin variant collection, two profession balance updates, a new fractal dungeon and challenge mode, and multiple updates for World vs. World. Additionally, we'll finish rolling out the DirectX11 and Chromium Embedded Framework upgrades and run our usual festival and bonus events. We also have some quality-of-life updates in the works, including a long-requested feature that will allow you to queue up for PvE maps when they're full. We might have a few surprises in store for you as well.

Here's a high-level look at our upcoming releases. The timing for some of the updates and betas listed above will be announced closer to their release dates.

• 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
  

In the background, we'll be quietly working on what's to come in the second half of the year. We'll have more to share on that later.



We're so excited about the next phase of Guild Wars 2—both the things we were able to share today and what's just over the horizon. The changes we've outlined will allow us to provide a better experience to our fans, release new content updates more consistently, and ensure that Guild Wars 2 will be around for many, many years to come.

We'll see you in the game,

Josh "Grouch" Davis
Game Director

Stars come to your call at the sound of your warhorn. Harness the power of mythical galaxies.


Explore faraway places like you never have before with the Wolf Raider Skiff Skin. This sturdy, reliable boat can withstand any stormy sea.


We're refreshing our seasonal selection of winter-themed dye kits this week. Cut through the crowds with your icy new look!

• Bag Slot Expansions are 20% off until February 20.
  

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

Phoenixes have been the beloved pets of Canthan royalty for centuries. With Empress Ihn visiting Divinity's Reach soon, demand for phoenix-themed attire has taken off. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get this many feathers...

This package will permanently unlock a new glider and backpack skin in your account wardrobe.


Inside each chest, you’re guaranteed to find a redeemable Black Lion Statuette and two common items. You also have a chance to find something rarer in the fifth slot, including exclusive items, glyphs, and skins from the Shimmering Aurora Weapon Collection and Magical Weapon Collection.

Black Lion Exclusive: Devil-Rending Cape
Any half-decent hero knows that there's nothing cooler—or hotter—than a river of flame cascading all around you. This item will permanently unlock a new backpack skin in your account wardrobe and is exclusively available as an uncommon find inside Black Lion Chests.

Black Lion Claim Ticket Update: Reflective Koi Weapons
Black Lion Weapons Specialists are offering this brand-new set of weapon skins for one Black Lion Claim Ticket each! Black Lion Claim Tickets can be found inside Black Lion Chests or purchased using Black Lion Statuettes.


For the next two weeks, we're offering discounts on the following items:

Salvage-o-Matics
The Copper-Fed, Silver-Fed, and Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matics are 20% off! These items function like salvage kits purchased from vendors but have unlimited uses.

Equipment Template Expansions
Each character can unlock up to six additional equipment template tabs, which you can use to store equipment layouts suited for a variety of combat encounters. Get yours at 20% off for a limited time!

Build Template Expansions
Each character can unlock up to five additional build template tabs, which you can use to store and swap between your favorite skill and trait combinations. Grab them at 40% off for the next two weeks.

Shared Inventory Slots
Every character on your account can access the items stored in these slots, so they're perfect for carrying food, boosters, salvage kits, gathering tools, and more! You can unlock up to twenty-five shared inventory slots through the Gem Store. Now available at 20% off the regular price.


Starting this Friday, the following items will be available in the Gem Store at a 20% discount:

• Dwayna's Throne
  
• Inquest Overseer Chair
  
• Pirate Captain's Chair
  
• Skyscale Chair
  

A new balance update is on its way! Join us this Friday, February 3 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8) on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel for a look at the February 14 profession balance update preview.

Skills and Balance Team Lead Cal "cmc" Cohen and Associate Game Designer Roy "Roy" Marks will be on stream to guide you through all you need to know about the upcoming profession changes. Following the stream, we'll post the full balance preview notes on our official forums.

Stay tuned and keep your weapons at the ready!

I'm Cecil Armstrong, WvW Team Lead and Producer, and I'm joined by Senior Game Designer Floyd Grubb. We're here today to share a preview of some WvW changes coming in the January 31 update and the months following it.

Before we dig in, we wanted to remind the community of our current team priorities:

1. Address player population balance issues through the World Restructuring and Alliances features.
   
2. Make WvW more rewarding to play with a focus on active participation.
   
3. Refine and iterate on core WvW systems like scoring, siege, upgrades, etc.
   

While World Restructuring and Alliances are still our primary focus, we were able to carve out some time in our schedule to make progress toward the second and third priorities on our list.


In addition to improved rewards, this update includes changes that are designed to encourage direct player vs. player conflict in fights over objectives while taking care to not take the fun (or the teeth) out of objective defense. We'll be keeping a close eye on these changes—both the player feedback and quantitative data—and will make follow-up adjustments as needed.

[h2]New Weekly Achievements[/h2]
We're adding a set of weekly achievements that reward players for active and positive contribution to World vs. World—for example, capturing objectives, taking down dolyaks, and defeating enemy players. Completing these achievements each week will reward players with 8 gold and up to 35 additional WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets (a ~10% increase in max weekly tickets). The weekly gold reward will only require completion of six out of seven of the achievements to give players flexibility in how they complete the weekly meta-achievement. These achievements will reset every Sunday at 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8).

[h2]Siege[/h2]
On he siege side of things, we're making flame rams and ballistae more durable. The duration and range on the flame ram's Iron Will skill are both also being increased to help relieve pressure on assaulters, while the range on the ballista's Reinforcing Shot is being increased to improve its ability to destroy siege weapons on objectives. We'd like to see the warclaw used a bit more frequently in objective assaults, so we're doubling the damage that its Chain Pull inflicts on gates.

Ram enjoyers, rejoice! We're fixing a long-standing issue that caused players to be kicked off siege weapons when hit by certain crowd-control abilities, even when under the effects of stability. This bug has become a key part of the WvW meta, resulting in defense strategies like double-stacking catapults behind gates to chain crowd control on flame ram users. All the changes above combined should help improve the success rate of gate assaults, even while they're being heavily defended.

[h2]Objectives[/h2]
The base maximum supply limit for keeps and Stonemist Castle, as well as the supply limit increases granted from the T1/T3 upgrades, are being reduced. These changes are intended to cut down on the time that objective assaulters spend chipping away at an objective's supply reserves during wall and gate sieges without directly lowering the active defensive capabilities of the defending team.

To compensate, we've increased the health of all supply dolyaks to make them easier to defend, and we increased the amount of supply that each successful delivery gives to Stonemist Castle and keeps. The base maximum supply levels for camps have also been increased, as well as the amount of supply that camps generate every 30 seconds, making them a more reliable supply source.


All the changes listed above will be live in just a few days, and we have more in the hopper for the first part of this year. We're currently working on improving rewards for active participation in fights over key objectives, making towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle bigger player activity hotspots.

On the World Restructuring and Alliances front, we're still diligently working on bringing those features to life. As we mentioned last year, we're going to hold off on running additional betas until the Alliances feature is ready for live testing. We're not ready to commit to a date for the first Alliances beta quite yet, but you'll get a more comprehensive update on this from us in Q1.

As we mentioned earlier in this post, we're planning to release iterative WvW changes more frequently this year, like the update coming next Tuesday. There's a lot of room for addressing low-hanging fruit in WvW systems, but we need to be careful not to disrupt the game mode too much all at once.

Thank you for reading, and we'll see you in the Mists!
—Floyd Grubb, Cecil Armstrong, and the WvW Team