In Guild Wars 2, the first major update since the new expansion End of Dragons is being released today, April 19. This includes the first Challenge Modes for the Assault Missions and the first episodes of Season 1 of the Living World. And it is exactly these episodes that players have been waiting for since 2013.
What kind of update is this? The new patch will be deployed today, expected at 18:00, and can be downloaded directly. The update is free and there will also be no downtime.
The update brings some major new features, including:
- The Challenge Mode for the Assault Mission Aetherblade Hideout. This is expected to significantly increase the difficulty of the raid-like content for 10 players.
- A new logging feature for WvW.
- The return of the first episodes of Season 1 of the Living World, which has also received some significant revisions.
- New, unique skins and rewards.
- A change to the Jade Bots, which caused a loot problem in WvW, will be reversed.
Above all, the Living World is eagerly awaited by many players. Although it was released in 2013, it was only temporarily playable. Since then, there has been a gap in the story of Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars 2 closes a major gap after 9 years
What was Season 1 of the Living World? This project was about a new update being deployed every 2 to 4 weeks. It continued the story and brought several significant events. Several areas were destroyed or changed due to attacks. The world was truly alive.
However, this content disappeared again after 2 to 4 weeks. Destroyed cities like Lion’s Arch remained, but the story could not be caught up. Anyone starting with Guild Wars 2 today faces a gap between the base game and Season 2 of the Living World and suddenly encounters characters that were previously completely unknown.
This gap is now to be gradually closed. A first step was already taken in 2021, when the developers brought back the Mad Puppet.
In total, there were 20 episodes that are now to be gradually reintroduced into the game through updates.
How does this return actually look? The new Season 1 of the Living World has been slightly adjusted, as the original version was not designed for the current chronicle system. Many contents will thus be in instances, which will also be more linear.
Additionally, the story and dialogues have been adjusted in some places to meet the modern standards of ArenaNet. After all, there were over 9 years between the first instance in January 2013 and the release now in April 2022.
With the new update, however, only the first episodes of Season 1 of the Living World will be brought back. In total, there are to be 5 updates spread out over the year. Update 2 is planned for May 24, as you can see from the new roadmap:
Guild Wars 2 shows roadmap for the future of the MMORPG – Announces 4th expansion and Steam release
What do you think about the return of Season 1 of the Living World? Is this the right step, or should the developers have focused their time on new content?
