Guild Wars 2 has all the time diverged from the the preferred MMO mannequin as dictated by World of Warcraft. One of the methods builders ArenaNet have managed that is by way of the Living World content material – episodic updates structured like a TV collection, designed to make the world of Tyria really feel like a always evolving place.
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With Living World Season Four underway, kicked off by the arrival of Episode 1 again in November 2017, we now discover ourselves on the cusp of Episode 2. Given the undead risk looming over our heroes we had been desirous to go hands-on with the second episode throughout a developer demonstration and take a look at a number of the new content material.
First on present is among the 4 new situations, titled The Test Subject. Here, our intrepid band of pre-created characters battle by way of one of many sinister laboratories of the Inquest, a scientific organisation of appreciable ambition and restricted ethics, now seemingly allied with the Lich King (not that one) Joko. After murdering some robots, liberating a mysterious Charr warrior from a testing lab, and detonating the entire constructing for good measure, we transfer on to the brand new questing zone.
The new open-world space is a jungle island populated by a tribal faction of Charr that’s being encroached upon by the aggressive forces of the Inquest. The island additionally appears to be struggling beneath the highly effective magic of a Djinn spirit, who’s making life tough by conjuring violent Elementals in all places.
We tackle a number of the Djinn’s Elementals in a novel encounter whereby the entire celebration are caught in a twister, pressured to always battle in opposition to the sturdy winds in addition to the murderous spirits. The Elementals are the primary concern within the island’s meta occasions, however if you wish to deal with serving to out the native Charr by partaking in spear fishing and beast wranglin’ then that can also be an possibility.
The additions of be aware within the second episode, then, are these 4 new group situations, the brand new open-world questing zone, a brand new mastery, some new bits of drugs (together with a legendary dagger), some graphical and participant customisation tweaks (akin to eradicating gender restrictions for Charr horns), and a continuation of the story of the Commander’s battle in opposition to the malevolent King Joko and his hordes of Awakened Undead. You would possibly bear in mind from final season that we barely stole his military and locked him in a hellish pocket dimension, doubtlessly without end… he’s slightly peeved about that on his return, understandably.
Although there are some recurring fashions from earlier within the sport’s growth, akin to a number of the Inquest Golems, they’ve been given a lick of paint to carry them in step with the current content material, with new textures and improved bump-mapping. It is a small revision, however that type of effort will be appreciated, particularly when most MMOs depend on the reuse of older property.
Seasoned raiders may be slightly disillusioned to listen to that there isn’t a new raid content material coming on this replace. But there does appear to be loads of group and solo content material to sink our tooth into. From what we noticed, Living World Season 4 Episode 2 ought to be a good addition to the continued Guild Wars 2 expertise.
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