The Living World returns to Guild Wars 2 one more time today and despite the obvious oddities of this new update, it manages to remind us that this is probably the best time in 10 years for new players to pick up Guild Wars 2.
The Tower of Nightmares is back, which is odd since my last visit to Kessex Hills was accompanied by a slag heap of miasma and rotting foundations. Thankfully, the latest incarnation of ArenaNet’s Season 1 revival of the Living World is the ultimate example of how this rebuild of Scarlet makes now the perfect time to get into Guild Wars 2. For those that aren’t aware, Guild Wars 2’s Tower of Nightmares was originally razed after an epic battle between the forces of good and a maniacal alliance of evil forces. Just a singular step in Scarlet Briar’s scheming, this highlight on the early narrative exploits launched near the end of 2013 and was an attempt to build a story that could change the landscape of Tyria, quite deliberately. Now, we get to return to a resurgent honestead for a Toxic Alliance and new players get a glimpse of the early ambitions of Guild Wars 2 story telling.
Like many of this year’s new Living World Season 1 relaunches, the Tower of Nightmares is a throwback to earlier days. Available for players logging in right now, or accessible via purchases like the Steam Complete Collection, this piece of the slowly unfolding Season 1 of Living World is available via the game’s Story Journal. Neatly repackaged and available to access in a reinvigorated set of instances, this chapter finds players following Marjory and Kasmeer’s investigation into a massive mix of metal, wood, and winding vines that loom over the Kessex Hills. While the opening instances aren’t quite as epic as what’s yet to come, there’s still a satisfying look at what’s once went on across these plains and how imposing the friends of the once new Toxic Alliance were.
The eponymous tower returns too, a massive growth and a menacing form that simply oozes poisonous intent, and yet it’s largely familiar. For players that have already absconded up this tower, the eventual waltz through the maze of encounters will feel as straight forward as they always have. Enemies seem the same as I remember and this mix of the Krait and the Nightmare Court continue to be a mundane exercise out in the wild, but an entirely different uphill struggle inside the aforementioned monolith. Once again, we navigated the derelict hallways and gargantuan passages of this rickety structure, looking like something that a drugged Skritt might make under the influence of Mordremoth. The expansive winding ramps and crooked platforms continue to offer up a range of miasma fuelled illusions and powerful slithering minions to push you back, but this tower is largely a case of burning down anything that moves until each floor unlocks, permitting players through these barriers and upwards to an eventual boss fight.
For players that have already tackled this content don’t expect the experience to be much more than a nostalgia trip. There’s little new here. The tower’s content is solid but nowhere near as inspired as some of the upcoming instances. The rewards, however, are rather unique. The familiar Toxic Spores are once again available, there’s the good old Krait Obelisk Shard, brand new achievements to unlock, and the spiffing Antitoxin Gloves to grab.
Largely, the chance to pickup some old options missed or grab new achievements will be the most evocative reason to get down into Kessex Hills, and hopefully take an opportunity to rediscover the utterly gorgeous environmental work that one o the game’s first public dungeons, only to pack it away after a few weeks. For new players, the Tower of nightmares offers a whole lot more. If you’ve just picked up Guild Wars 2 or are thinking of doing so, this episode is the first glimpse of the true scale that Living World aimed for in its early days. Aside from the creepy creatures that stalk the hallways, appear from the darkest recesses of your mind, and generally haunt the unprepared, this update plays with new ideas, gets creepy without turning into a cliché Halloween creation, and introduces an environment that warps the world around it into something unique.
Somehow, ArenaNet has managed to rework this Living World episode, renovating a monstrous structure from a heap of rubble. The terrors that await arena unusual mix of influences, feeling like a halfway mix between an oozing interpretation of Tyria’s more traditional enemies and the truly hideous monsters that came creeping out of the very first Heart of Thorns expansion, all without becoming overpowering to the inexperienced Commander. Finally, while players are able to climb the tower in a private group, the public instance of this megastructure would go on to inform a ton of the instanced events that come later and set something of a precedent going forward through Season 1 of Living World. While I might have seemed dismissive because I’ve been there and done that, this is where the first Season of Living World really starts to become interesting. With the community focused on playing through these republished adventures that arrived long before Guild Wars 2 even got its first expansion, this might be exactly when you want to hop abord. You really don’t get left in the lobby. This is the perfect time to jump into Guild Wars 2 before Scarlet starts to bring out the big guns, when the final episode of Season 1 comes to the game for all players, free of charge, in Q4 2022.
You can grab all of Season 1 as part of the Guild Wars 2 – Complete Collection via Steam or head over to the Guild Wars 2 website to download and try out the Tower of Nightmares for yourself.
