The progression seems natural, and will hopefully result in more players feeling comfortable tackling the game's more rewarding endgame activities. And if you can complete it, you're more than prepared to enter Strike missions-the current home of Guild Wars 2's instanced endgame. It's spectacular-both visually and in terms of its challenge and drama. Built around its showpiece boss fight, Dragon's End is the most mechanically complex boss in the open-world. That knowledge is then reinforced through the story, and put to the test out in events-most dramatically on the game's final map. For the first time, there's an area in the open world that explains and demonstrates concepts like combo fields and defiance bars. More than before, the expansion takes Guild Wars 2's current touchstones- heart quests, story missions, dynamic events and strike missions-and structures them to create an obvious learning curve for players. And the map-wide meta events are some of my favourite to date. A good mix of enemy types ensures its fights feel meaningfully different to other regions-Guild Wars 2 has always done a good job of using density, status buffs, debuffs and crowd control effects to make open world encounters feel specific to their map, and that trend continues here. Nonetheless, the new maps are overall a success, and offer a decent degree of challenge too. This is more a problem with the minimap, where the lack of clarity around routes between the different levels of the city can be frustrating-especially during the map-wide meta where quickly navigating between events is a must. It's just slightly too lifeless for a supposedly teeming metropolis, and repeats a consistent issue with the game's more vertical maps of being annoying to navigate. It's impressive to look at, but not as much fun to explore. New Kaineng City is a grand, towering metropolis that showcases the Jade tech that the region has adopted (and gives ArenaNet an excuse to sidestep the usual tropes of cyberpunk dystopia). That said, the ambition at times can't match Guild Wars 2's capabilities. The Echovald Wilds, conversely, are dark and foreboding-a twisted forest with dense packs of enemies to convey the threat of the lawless frontier.
The first, Seitung Province, is bright and vibrant-a spectacular introduction that deftly sets the stage and highlights how the region has changed from its Guild Wars 1 days. The maps look consistently beautiful, too.
I particularly love the many ambient conversations of NPCs reckoning with their introduction to the weirdness of Tyria at large-tree people and all.ĭragon's End is the most mechanically complex boss in the open-world. As a region, Cantha was a part of the first Guild Wars, and that history is built into the maps and the characters that inhabit them.
If the campaign alone hurries through explanations of the gangs of Echovald, for instance, it's because their story is more fully realised on the maps themselves-through dynamic events and collections. I've seen some complaints that the story's final third is rushed, but it fits Guild Wars 2's structure. Here, though, there are plenty-likely because their reuse in a more mechanically complex endgame form gives ArenaNet the excuse to spend more time on their construction. Before End of Dragons, I would struggle to name a campaign boss fight I actually enjoyed. It helps that its big, act-ending boss fights are also repurposed for the instanced strike missions. It's more deft in its presentation, too, doing a good job of letting the player revel in both small moments and grand spectacle.
GUILD WARS 2 STANDARD COLLECTION FULL
But the route to that point is frequently surprising, and full of memorable moments for both new and returning allies. The conclusion isn't exactly a surprise-End of Dragons was not a subtle name in a game that has, in recent years, seemed in a hurry to move beyond the Elder Dragons that have dominated up to now. Its characters are given enough space to work through their feelings as events unfold, but there's a lightness to the delivery. Here, instead, it's breezy-a fun adventure even as the story becomes steadily darker. Guild Wars 2's writing has varied over the years, but tonally it can often feel too arch and sarcastic. Broadly I enjoy what ArenaNet has done here.
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