What Lies Within jumps into action today, where a Guild Wars 2 without Elder Dragons still brings its own litany of dangers
Before you gear up and prepare to take on the latest chapter in ArenaNet’s long running MMORPG, it’s probably time we had a chat about our feelings. The follow up to February’s What Lies Beneath is something of an unexpected departure for any of us that have spent more than a decade defending Tyria. Along the way, we’ve slain Dragons, cut down twisted geniuses, watched civil war break out, and dealt with the death of so man. Now, it’s time to face the fallout.
The second section of the Gyala adventure requires a different approach from previous adventures. It’s a little less slay first and deal with the comical scale magic imbalance afterwards. Instead, taking down the forces that await requires some introspection. The combined knowhow of Taimi’s eggheads determines that the Delve’s remaining shadowy adversaries can be taken down with the power of emotion. It might all sounds a little Sailor Senshi and on the nose for this particular adversary but with some creative writing and a deep well of lore to mine, this subterranean battle opens on some potentially interesting ideas.
Narratively, this means a few things for us. There’s a quite obvious return to the jade mine that we worked last episode, and across Tyria to take some time to plough the trenches of the Commander’s soul. Players are quickly tasked with taking a trip across Tyria, talking out their feelings, visiting the homesteads or final stands of fallen comrades. Across Blazeridge Steppes and sanctums of Tarir, this journey accumulates a powerful collection of memories and emotional power from various factions. It’s an interesting idea that finally addresses the very personal consequences of the Commander’s actions over the last decade or so. We’ve seen the player character wage war across Tyria, die, come back to life, face death again, fell gods, and still soldier on without a nervous twitch. The opportunity to talk it out is actually welcome. Despite this, I’m torn on the execution.
Designed as a series of fetch quests, the opening segments of What Lies Within promise plenty but are largely hit and miss. ArenaNet does a great job sending us back to early areas of the world and regions you probably don’t see except for the odd map meta. The delivery is great, and it’s wonderful to hear so much voice acted dialogue across this chapter. Despite the praise, this opening sometimes felt like a missed opportunity. Some of the voices were deeply personal and evocative, while others felt like peripheral characters that bear little real weight on your conscience. With so many years of trials and loss to mine, I do feel like we were missing a few more deep cuts.
I’ve been so explicit about my mixed feelings for these opening sections since this tussle for my affection runs through much of the narrative, even up towards the finale. Much of the story chapter touches on emotion and trauma but manages to continue to not quite nail the landing. Whether that’s a restriction because of the game’s age rating, a decision to keep things relatively light, or a combination of other decisions it’s still great to see themes that relate to mental health welling up in this episode.
More Action less Emotion
Thankfully, for anybody looking to go in all guns blazing, there’s plenty to loot and shoot here. The second in this pair of episodes introduce a map meta across the Gyala Delve that provides an exceptional payoff for your efforts. Kicking off in a fairly familiar form, a siege event led by the Brotherehood and Chul-Moo. After kicking off it descends into the Delve and asks your fellow adventurers to crash through a series of rocky fortifications. These are blown apart by Jade Explosive and need to be adequately powered using ley-line energy Thus ensues a multi-tiered collect and defend event that is heavily reliant on the newest mount to the game. You’ll stumble around a series of cavernous outcrops blasting crystals to release ley-line energy. Anybody who doesn’t have a Siege Turtle can rent one, or better yet jump into the second player seat to add extra carrying capacity in the trunk of these green meanies.
This is a fairly straightforward collect and defend task that ultimately ends up with face off against a Haze covered monstrosity out in Gyala Delve’s Excavation Site. Sure, you can’t hold it in palace with the power of love, but you can expect a series of phases that make sold sense. Among a range of phases, you’ll be able to blast away crystalline outcrops, spawn shades, or peel off to acquire sniper rifles and take down this big bad’s break bar. Functionally, that doesn’t make this encounter overly complex for experienced raiders, but the entire map meta does seems to an adequate level of difficulty and there’s plenty of reason why. Blow away this monstrosity and the loot is worth the effort. Alongside a singular massive loot box, you’ll find a range of smaller secondary chests with loot depending on your effort, and then another new zone to raid. Once this meta is marched all the way to its completion, players are free to explore the ambience of a cleansed land for an hour before the encroaching presence returns to haunt your mental state. This allows for adequate time to try out a series of new activities, from skiff races to bot activities that we had a few minutes to dabble in, but couldn’t really unlock on our own when we returned to the map later.
Whether players continue to run this fairly extensive meta, keep the darkness at bay and unlocking all the new activities is largely dependent the rewards on offer. After all, there are so many map metas to pick from now. I’m glad to say that What Lies Within provides some very enticing drops and add ons for your character. Alongside the Mining Hand Drill mace that we saw during last week’s announcement there’s also a new Energized Luxon Hunter’s weapon set. This, like many previous brings a new selection appropriately decorated options to bear on the enemies of Tyria, but it’s the Special Ops armor set that I’m hyped to get my hands on. This Special Ops set adds beautifully clean industrial lines to any character. It’s not quite steampunk but stops just short of being something out of the Marvel comic book wardrobe. Best of all, this isn’t just a spare set of pauldrons or a shiny pair of shoes. It’s an entire look. If you’re searching for more than that then there’s an even fancier looing Captains version of the helm and a new back piece on offer too.
Money Wont make You Happy
What Lies Within is an odd amalgamation of ideas. Narratively, this is a strong step away from the traditional back and forth of big scale Dragon Bash that sometimes lands and sometimes feels a little flat. Functionally, it feels like a rather limited release that does what it needs to keep players coming back again and again. Where it really shines is in the little moments, From Scruffy’s cockpit to the moments of introspection at the Inner Sanctum of Tarir, and really that’s what this episode is all about. The small battle that we all need to overcome. Go grab some loot today. What Lies Within is available as a free update, accessible via the End of Dragon’s expansion. Find out how to get it on the official Guild Wars 2 website now.
