ArenaNet Director, Josh Davis, dropped a blog post looking back and forward to a Guild Wars 2 Expansion announcement, due next week.
Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure is over, and it’s been an interesting expedition for many reasons. In that vein, ArenaNet’s Studio Director just dropped a new blog post detailing more than a few key things Guild Wars developer has learned and hinting at some changes for a big expansion announcement next week. First announced in summer 2023, the last expansion to the tale of Tyria changed the game in many ways. It moved from a Living World narrative to a more frequent yearly expansion cycle, changing the cadence of updates but still attempting to give players comprehensive updates that fleshed out the game world.
While that means we are just in time for a new yearly cycle, it also provides some insight into the things to expect for next week’s announcement. Despite the insistence by Davis that a year of feedback and analysis won’t provide any spoilers, it’s hard to see how the following conclusions are not relevant. The post proceeds to detail that moving forward ‘we’re going to tell a more grounded story set in a new region of Tyria, with more of a focus on local threats and the global conversation around those threat.’ This reflects issues with character development and general scope of SotO. The new map expansion is also likely to change things up, redistributing the locations for the upcoming update and changing the pace of the story around these new, and old, regions of the world.
That’s not everything that Davis teased. The news also touched on general quality of life improvements, producing enhanced visuals and environments for the long running MMO. Here’s a brief snippet of that improvement, and a look at a new area from next week’s announcement. Watch closely and you’ll catch a glimpse of some interesting architecture along the cliff face. While I look a little Norn, this definitely isn’t a new Holebrack. Let the speculation begin and check out the full details over on the official website now.
