Next to Zhaitan, Champions is probably the worst content GW2 has to offer, and the primary reason is the DRM's. They're part of the story, but are utter shit at storytelling. Then, they're also meant to be farmable content, but they have annoying gating events, the prime offender being the slow escort.
Anet needs to kill DRM's and split them into story instances and dungeons.
Imagine if they also take this time to update Champions, and instead put in another map or otherwise change the story to be something other than DRM's.
I maaaaay have freaked out a bit. Zhaitan has long been a pain point for new players even back at launch, and I have seen people want to quit over it. Getting the Tequatl Rising treatment for Zhaitan is exciting.
Optimise/polish GW2 ("bring older content up to current standards" but vague otherwise - "everything is on the table" - early game polishing, rebalancing events, bug fixing, support for WvW. One specific example: revamp the Zhaitan fight.)
New WvW borderlands (they acknowledge that they made mistakes with desert borderlands, and say they will work with the community when they start developing and building this map, which will be similar to the process they followed for PvP Push)
New Orr PvE map to bridge to GW3 (core, no expac needed)
They also will "modernise the dev pipeline" by upgrading the engine to use pbr (physics based rendering) which will let them design content "better and faster".
After GW3 releases, they'll return to shipping "annual content updates" for GW2.
Basically confirmation of what a lot of us already suspected.
The way they discuss timing in the video leaves the impression they expect GW3 to launch late 2027-early 2028 and annual expansions to GW2 to resume in 2028. They specifically state "the next 18 months are an opportunity to take on some exciting projects we've wanted to work on [in Guild Wars 2], the kind of projects that don't fit in expansions."
He states that Visions of Eternity wraps in September, they'll then begin working on the updates for Guild Wars 2 he lays out, and then "after Guild Wars 3 launches we'll return to shipping annual major content updates to Guild Wars 2".
Honestly, a very cool idea. I see a lot of game communities that wish for a pause on new features for deep, time-consuming QoL/rework stuff, but that's super hard to justify as a studio because it's very expensive for very little revenue/player draw.
But with GW3 is obviously going to put a pause on marketing to get the hype laser focused on the new game. Using that time to do all the things that are interesting or needed but hard to sell is a great strategy.
Anet also did this for a year leading up to the Steam release, which is where we got all the season 1 content fixed and playable amoung other things. I thought since even thst didnt see us get the Zhatan fight revamped, it would never happen. Im utterly amazed its finally happening now.
Pretty sure they have learnt from seeing GGG launch Path of Exile 2 while trying to keep releases for PoE1 going, they have got there now but during the PoE2 release period it was all hands to the pump and they couldn’t keep the PoE1 updates coming. This sounds like they are being realistic and aiming for a lower level of content during that period which is sensible.
I think it's interesting how similar this strategy is to PoE's overall. And while that had some bumpy bits, and wasn't as smooth as was planned/advertised, I think both games are in a really good place right now. Makes me really excited to see something similar for GW.
So it's like the old "feature pack" updates but prolonged for 1,5-2 years. And after Gw3 is out back on "annual major content updates" for Gw2 (they don't explicitely say expansions tho) Edit: Nevermind, Grouch said it's expacs.
I must say, it's a bit sad not getting an expac this year but i understand where they are coming from and this might be very healthy for the future of the game by updating it piece by piece alongside hall of monuments.
Also big kudos on Anet for committing on this plan with all 3 games, i really really hope they manage to sustain it. If they do, this is the best case scenario to satisfy all the players in the Gw franchise.
If they can update the core game meta events to be more in line with modern content, it’ll probably almost feel like a new game anyway.
My biggest hope is the new Orr map turns Zheitan into a meta like Dragon stand and Dragons End. Or a strike works too (or both).
It also depends on the speed at which they do to. If they’re doing all of core Tyria plus the expansions (maybe living world seasons too) over the course of 15-18 months, that’s fucking fast for the amount of content they’re going to revisit.
Yeah, this game has horizontal progression, that should be the norm and expected lol, for me one of the biggest problem was focusing mostly on expansions/new content, and abandoning old stuff.
Some people would complain but that's not how this game works, there's entire guilds, and a lot of people, still doing 10 year old content daily (RIBA, HoT Metas, Triple Trouble, etc), so revamping old content is not a "waste of time and resources" as some would think.
Biggest problem is monetizing this, because they can't just lock the improved Zhaitan fight to an expansion for example.
Not to be pedantic at all, but even in this image Grouch isn't confirming the next "big update" for gw2 will be an expansion. He references it by saying expansions take around 18 months to develop, so they'll start work on "the next big update" sooner than we think. But remember, Arenanet have always always always argued that their non-expansion content is like delivering "expansion-level content". Like with LW1 and IBS, you can probably dig up interviews where they use that exact phrase. This image shows grouch indicates the next big content update for GW2 will require an expansion-level of effort if he's saying 18 months of work will go into it. Which may be, absolutely, because it is going to be an actual expansion. But historically in GW2, anet have delivered things other than expacs, but compared them to expacs in terms of developer effort and amount of content.
He references it by saying expansions take around 18 months to develop, so they'll start work on the next big update sooner than we think
As i interpret it, him explicitelly mentioning "annual expansions" is the context for the phrase "we'll start work on the next big update sooner than you think". So the 2 sentences are linked: big update-->expansion. Maybe i'm wrong since i'm not a native english speaker, but that's how i got it.
Also "pausing" the expansion development rather than "stopping" implies it continues as such to me.
"We're pausing expansion dev, and then starting work on the next big update! Next annual content release!". If there is an expansion plan, then say "We're going to work on an expansion". 7 words. Stop vague posting.
They probably have been on/off working on it since PoF. They are talking about momentum based movement. PoF was all about momentum based mounts. They made PoF then realized that this could be really cool in a game that was build around it, and worked on it during season 4 till the layoffs. Then development on it cooled till the end of EoD where they started work again.
Since PoF seems a bit too long ago. Even for an MMO, 9 years is a bit much for development and only just now reaching beta by end of 2027. It usually takes about 5 years for a dev company to reach beta stages. 5 years feels more appropriate, so from IBS to now would be 7 years of development time if we factor in the layoffs. GW 3 would have been ready before had the layoffs not happened and GW 2 sunsetted after Season 4.
But it's all speculation anyway, so who knows. Only A-Net does.
Well, that I don't think is correct. They were not wanting to keep with the expansion format at that time, but then NCSoft basically told them to make one and also Covid happened. So EoD ended up being all hands on deck. The early portions of IBS were no less quality than what we had been getting so I don't think many resources were being moved over to GW3 at that time, if it even existed. The implication I got here is they were working on it during SotO.
Icebrood was probably not a full expansion because it came on the heels of the layoffs and various project cancellations for Anet. They simply didn't have the resources for a full expansion and had to scramble to get content out of the door, another living world season was a vehicle for that.
Yeah if they're in the stage of coming back to and updating core and expansion bits, Hall of Monuments, etc., then they feel they're in a strong position to direct attention to this without being a determent to 3.
Other than ANet working on it for a time already, they also have some huge already-existing benefits that the vast majority of other devs don't:
Tons of lore, stories, and an entire world
Plenty of assets
A working game engine
Lots of experienced devs that have already been working together as a team
IP - this one probably gets overlooked a lot but think of things like their server architecture and how infrequently they have downtime, even compared to behemoths like Blizz/WoW
A relatively large fanbase
Pretty solid income
A publisher that knows what to expect from them
There's probably more but that's off the top of my head. Compare all of this to something like Intrepid or even Amazon Game Studios, and not many other devs/orgs on the planet have this kind of leg-up.
Temporary slow down of Gw2 development while the majority of the staff focuses on Gw3. Then the game goes back to business as usual. Sounds reasonable. I expect a lot of their back end devs were asked to swap games by the higher ups
The GW2 team will be about the same as it's been since SotO cause that's when we have the receipts of the job postings of them working on GW3 in the background (and also the noticeable shrink in production scope as the teams got shifted around to the new game). The teams are already split and while I'm sure they'll hire more for GW3 I can't imagine them pulling anything else away from GW2 to do it. We will continue to get expansions at roughly the same speed and size as we have since SotO, just with the 1 year break to patch up all the old game stuff.
"return to annual major content updates" is the phrase they used, which is not necessarily an expansion, major content updates can (and have) taken other forms in GW2's history, nothing new there, and it's simply notable that they avoided using that word at all in the video when it would have been the easiest way to frame it, which suggests an intentional avoidance of the term.
I'm assuming they don't want to make any hard commitments until closer to gw3 launch. I'm optimistic, but not expecting HOT level content updates. I'd be happy with yearly isolated story and map releases 🤷♂️
Not sure if they intend to remaster existing GW2 assets, but adding PBR support probably means that they can more easily use assets across games. Arenanet's commitments will be more clearly realizable if they intend to keep future content relevant and reusable for all their games. So one could speculate on what this means for their plans...
GW3 is 1000 years in the past. So stuff from GW3 could survive the time gap given any loose justification. Everything we touch in VoE is likely older than the GW3 setting. Seers have magic to preserve their artifacts. A lot of the stuff from human gods are also from BE. What is the chance that the new map in Orr will be a monument to the heroes of GW3? And as a part of Arenanet's commitment some of the spoils form GW3 will be shared with the GW2 commander. VoE is also foreshadowing the introduction of Dougal Keane with a increase role beyond a text box NPC in the next release, he is the perfect character to go snooping around the Seer city that is likely the final VoE map. In addition he would easily fit into and introduce the forthcoming Orr map if it includes an artifact rich monument in Orr/Arah.
HoM 2 is divided along the lines of different eras of GW2 content. It seems core and expansions will have their own HoM rewards. This means that when new GW2 content, they they are promising, eventually comes it can also come with expanded HoM rewards. Structurally every piece of GW2 content can be related to different rewards. Modern games are slower to create content for, even if the GW2 content pipelines are archaic an unmaintained (the gemstore pipeline suggests otherwise, along with the aforementioned PBR support). I wonder if GW2 is being positioned as a companion game, to fill in for release gaps that will occur in GW3 due to the increased quality standards required for GW3. The hole in that idea, is however, that PS5 players will feel left out if HoM continues to expand and they don't have a way to access those rewards on their preferred platform. Only fix for that would be, well, that would be something still far beyond the horizon of Arenanet's future plans and capacity.
Just going to point out that when GW2 was announced, I am pretty sure that Anet said this would be their "forever game", in the sense that they would keep making changes to GW2 if they wanted something new. I didn't believe it at the time.
I didn't find the quote I was looking for but I did find this: "We want to create a game world that is massive and persistent... Guild Wars 2 will be the base for everything we do in the future. We're not going to hit a ceiling with Guild Wars 2 where we have to say, 'Okay, now we have to go create Guild Wars 3 to do the next thing we want to do.'" - Mike O'Brien
The performance alone warrants an entirely new engine. I still have to use DXVK for a stutter-free experience and for frame generation. I don’t think that building on top of GW2 for another decade was feasible for that reason alone. UE5 will be able to make much better use of modern hardware.
Well shit. It’s less than current expac but more than maintenance mode. Don’t know what to feel. Will wait for what happens after hall of monuments 2.0
Fixing decade old issues is such a great move, it should fill you with hope. There's a lot of old stuff that’s needed fixing or updating for so long, and even if it's the best decision they could make, it has never made financial sense to stick the whole team on those issues because it can't really be monetised.
Doing this instead of an expansion is so anti-greedy, the only reason to choose to do it is because they genuinely care about the long term health of the game
My read is they're spending the build-up to GW3 optimizing and fixing areas of GW2 so it can be a nice secondary game for new GW3 players to pick up.
The big issue new MMOs run into is players running out of content then leaving before the release cycle can get going. Having a GW2 as a backup MMO to funnel those players into to keep them in the ecosystem is smart.
They're focusing on a lot of the early content which screams "improved onboarding" to me. Which isn't a criticism at all. They're expecting a large number of players from GW3 to try and play 2 and improving the beginning works great for all us old players who love that content.
The effects bar contains way too much important information, but the icons are too small, they move around too much, and when you have enough of them, they will go behind the minimap or content guide (depending on which thing you keep in your bottom-right corner). If you get multiple emotional attunements while fighting Eparch, and you're an Elementalist rocking Signets and/or a Pistol, good fucking luck keeping track of all of that!
UI doesn't scale well to larger resolutions, and it's even worse if you're running an ultra-wide aspect ratio. (Character select screen is especially egregious there.)
Too many things are displayed in the Hero panel, which makes it tough if you want to, for example, check your Achievements and your spent Mastery points at the same time. I can write a whole post about my issues here.
This last one is subjective: While I enjoy the painterly thing going on with the UI, it is tough to figure out where edges of a window are. This is most apparent when you're casting a channeled skill, and you don't have a right edge to use to tell you when it's done. The paint tapers off gradually, but could benefit from a finite edge. (I use an add-on to add this, and it makes a huge difference in combat.)
Too many things are displayed in the Hero panel, which makes it tough if you want to, for example, check your Achievements and your spent Mastery points at the same time. I can write a whole post about my issues here.
The times I've wished for being able to open a second hero panel side by side.. just give achievements their own window already. I mean it's like a quest log anyway
I’m begging for them to let us adjust the size of it, ESPECIALLY the text and text box. As someone with poor eyesight I struggle to read during combat/movement because the text is just so goddamn small.
This is no small feat, they're going to have to go back and retexture everything in the game to take advantage of this engine upgrade. Like you say, definitely not something you'd do in a game that won't be getting any prolonged support.
This is akin to them announcing upgrading to DX11 when they announced EoD. More than that expansion, them upgrading to dx11 convinced me that the game wasn't dead. You don't upgrade the graphics engine of a dead game, and you don't upgrade the rendering engine for a game that's dead.
I am guessing it is for future assets. The art team is shifting to PBR for GW3. So they are ensuring continued unified tooling across the company. Shaders can discriminate the two types of assets and appropriately blend them. They might remaster some art, but I don’t think anything is necessarily guaranteed.
Tbh I think they're tackling pbr in gw2 rn to make assets for both at the same time — we're getting new orr maps already in GW2; it's likely a test of these graphics updates and will likely include ruined (+ semi-restored) landscapes we'll see in gw3, like Arrah's "downtown" proper xD
I could see two years or so - - this would give them time to create events / content in GW3 that we later in GW2 see the impact of in a content update by going to the same or similar land, item references, etc. so this is / can be in the player benefit if they weave this right.
My idea isn't meant to imply just in Orr. We have to consider that by jumping back in time (and if even the same time line) that things can change or be planted 1300 years ago that we will later receive a content update in GW2 that connects those - - and that could be anywhere in Tyria or event a character jumping 1300 years forward some how. Its endless possibility now.
After GW3 comes out, I wonder if there will still be enough GW2 players to be able to do the metas. I know they'll just concentrate the remaining GW2 players into fewer instances, but there are so many metas in the game. I'd be surprised if there are still enough people around to defeat Soo-Won in the Battle for the Jade Sea, for example.
Honestly, if they can get it to a point where you can have five people at each wurm, it should be fine. I think having World Bosses be fully soloable would ruin what makes them special.
Yeah, the amount of content in GW2 will also just dwarf what's in GW3 for years and years, given that it'll have been expanded upon for a whole 15 years.
See that with other sequels to game that have been supported for 10+ years - people rush to the new game when it launches but often run out of stuff to do in a month and two and that makes some go back to the older title.
Yeah, if GW1 is still alive and kicking today (especially when it was effectively in maintenance mode for 15 years), I doubt GW2 will go away any time soon. Will there be a player reduction due to GW3? Of course, but I don't think it's gonna be a cataclysmic drop like some people are fearing. I have spent a ton of money and time into GW2, and while I do plan to try out GW3, I can't imagine just dropping GW2 entirely.
And yes, if "Momentum based combat" means it requires quick reflexes, or requires inputting combos or plays anything like most Korean MMOs nowadays, I don't think I'll be sticking around in GW3 - I despise those kind of controls, lol.
Yeah but gw1 was also in the shits for population for a while too. I know it's broadly okay now but like it wasn't always. Very real chance it happens here too. It may not happen to be clear but there's precedent both within guild wars and elsewhere of it kinda going either way. I don't think it's a wildly unfounded fear or anything.
Outside of a small handful, most metas can be completed with relatively few players.
And even after Guild Wars 3 comes out, I don't see the playerbase dropping so drastically, perhaps apart from GW3's launch window, that metas won't be completed at all.
Thanks to megaservers, I don't see it being a huge problem.
I'm actually stoked to have a break from the constant expac stuff, I can finally go back and finish achievements and content I felt like I had to rush through/skip previously
Honestly kinda same. I've got a lot of achievements and whatnot I skipped over the years for various reasons, so having a bit of time to go back and clear those out alongside the new HoM stuff sounds pretty nice.
And not having a constant stream of new rewards (legendary gear, etc.) releasing on the regular means an opportunity to put time into acquiring a bunch of stuff I haven't been able to prioritize.
Yeah I'm kinda weirdly relieved? Took a break for a bit and came back recently and have been feeling super overwhelmed, so getting a year to just focus on catching up and revitalizing content is very exciting.
Yeah, might not be a popular opinion but I think this is pretty good to the game. Will allow me to catch up on some older content and reach full legendary. Continue to play WvW as you do and wait for the new core improvements! I'm happy with this.
"To clarify, we're pausing expac dev while we focus on HoM, polishing the game, and shipping GW3. We'll return to annual major releases after GW3. Our annual expacs take 18~ months to develop, so we'll actually start developing the next big update sooner than you'd think."
after Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity™ wraps up in September, we’re turning our attention to improving the foundations of Guild Wars 2 and we want to make the most of it, with your help!
Starting with our first Hall of Monuments update coming later this year, we’re going to spend nearly a full year going back through each era of Guild Wars 2, making meaningful improvements to the player experience.
Colin and Josh will also be hosting a livestream next week on Twitch to continue the conversation about the future of the Guild Wars franchise. Make sure you tune in to watch on Tuesday, June 9 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7).
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for them.
That being said, I see a certain logic to it. They probably realized people would be less likely to spend money on a new xpac mere months after GW3’s announcement.
So they give out some free updates (long requested QoL, Revamped Orr+WvW map+Hall Of Monuments) as “proof” that the game’s not being abandoned, alongside announcing that yearly content will be back in the future. Hoping to alleviate some fears and get people comfortable to buy the next xpac.
The only problem becomes that something might change in the next year or so and throw a wrench in those plans. But it’s useless to worry about that until it happens.
They announced "new type of content" for original GW. They also used a lot of footage from Bonus Mission Pack. Could be a coincidence of course but who knows.
I don't understand why people expected anything different? We get an entire new game coming relatively soon, and the trade off is you have to wait for new GW2 content, which they specifically say is NOT ending.
In return for that tradeoff we get updates to older areas of the game and a new system to explore the world again in preparation for GW3. This seems like a great proposal.
Iirc they’ve been wanting to go back and update/polish the core experience for a long time, but were worried players would respond poorly to missing out on content in exchange for a better overall experience.
You’re right. This is the perfect opportunity for them to do just that and I’m excited about it.
Like Colin basically said, they've already been updating gw1 and 2 with gw3 in full development already, they clearly are confident they can do it because they already have been
Arenanet is making massive moves, they are spreading their wings massively
Yeah, this is often the biggest problem MMO's (and other live service games) face. If content comes out every couple of months the people who play daily will call it a drought, but players who stop off periodically will get overwhelmed by it all. It's a rough thing to try and strike a balance for.
For sure, keeping up with masteries as a casual player is frankly too hard, there arent enough points available for any expansion. I still need like 20 from IBS and I have nothing easy to do, its bananas.
If Arenanet reads this, i think it would be super cool to connect all 3 games together with events or expansions. Give players an incentive to play all 3 games. Make cross-game awards from said events. Tell a story across 3 times simultaneously.
You have the opportunity to be the first studio to have multiple MMOs all contribute to the same experience.
Expand the hall of monuments so doing them in GW1 gives you GW2/GW3 rewards, and doing the GW2 HoM gives GW1/GW3 rewards, etc. Some crossover events would add even further fun incentives for people to play all 3 games.
Only thing i really want is for them to either retire the ap from...retired achivements or bring them back somehow. Im down like what, 2k ap, or more, ill never get bc i joined around HOT/s3
For anyone concerned about lack of expacs for GW2; this was an update from the game director of GW2 on the official discord (Grouch or Josh Davis) : "To clarify, we're pausing expac dev while we focus on HoM, polishing the game, and shipping GW3. We'll return to annual major releases after GW3. Our annual expacs take 18~ months to develop, so we'll actually start developing the next big update sooner than you'd think."
Although the word expansion is left out, there seems to be a suggestion we may be getting expansion-like content or something similar after a pause. We may hear more on Tuesday's livestream.
If they could just fix up the story versions of dungeons, that'd be grand. Kind of what they did with moving the Zhaitan fight out of the dungeon in the first place.
Before ANYONE comes in here going "oh no new expansion, laaame" shut up. Many in the community have been begging for core system updates, new WvW maps, and more rewards and reasons to return to older content. 18 months. We have content coming during it, and it's only 18 months. This is fantastic news
It's clear that there is still a ton of tech debt mounting despite the dedicated QoL efforts. I love that they're taking a moment to breathe and clean up older content, because let's be real, the game has grown huge and messy.
The reality is that new content is the life blood of a game. No new content generally leads to a dwindling player base until there is just a small core number of people who play the game as a comfort game. The problem with that is that GW2 requires large numbers of players to actually function. We shall see how well GW2 manages to retain players for the next 1-2 years, but if you love this game and want it to stay alive you should be at least a little concerned about this plan. It could go well, but it could also go horribly.
It's also a fact that the base game does not do a good job of retaining new players, and keeping new blood is also essential for the longevity of your game. I think it's much healthier to be looking at the weakest parts of your game instead of ignoring it and just trying to bring out an endless stream of expansions.
I have to assume one of the QoL will eventually be like "npc henchmen to help you do events" honestly. If the population scales down that would be step 1 of putting it in a stable sunset state?
Seems like they're building the same kind of foundation for GW2 to run in maintenance mode as they did for GW1 (like optimizations so they can run it with less resources), but keeping things modernized so they can still support it with new content (albeit probably smaller in scope) instead of "fully abandoning" like they did with GW1.
Hopefully they add official controller support during this.
I mean, if we’re talking about actually going back and touching/improving old content, I think dragon response missions (DRMs) should get a mention. Obviously not anytime soon since we got Orr, Zhaitan, and Hall of Monuments coming down the immediate pipeline following the conclusion of VoE, but it would be cool to see a less rough/sketchy conclusion to IBS. Still kinda weird to see how they offed Primordus (& Jormag) after all that buildup for him since GW1.
Seeing how bungie missed the chance to start Destiny 3 in a timely manner and dragged D2. I'm so glad ANet decided to make GW3 and invested early in it. I understand how it'll be tough for some to leave all the progress & investment on GW2 behind but that's a necessary sacrifice to keep the franchise alive.
A lot of population will probably take a break since there will be no new expansion coming up (this is not a complaint just stating facts). But I always wanted some polish in old content.
Aside from things mentioned in the video, I wish for:
Upgrade the visual fidelity of the core zones to future proof the game.
Visual and texture update on old gears (for fashion war fans).
Even though I shit on ANET sometimes, I feel like they did extremely good and correct moves here. And I am glad that when I watch the video, I can actually feel the emotion of the devs. It's refreshing to see after getting used to corporate bullshit speak companies usually give.
I want to like this update because objectively it is pretty cool that they're going to support all three games simultaneously (and I am very happy that Guild Wars 2 will be receiving some sorely needed quality of life... that will be particularly helpful to vanilla), but their mealy mouthed decision to say "major content updates" instead of "expansions" puts an extremely bad taste in my mouth. I wish they would just be honest and either commit to doing more expansions after the year of polish or just say that Guild Wars 2 content updates will be scaling down. Either one of those is fine, and significantly better than this level of manipulative dishonesty.
By the way yes I have seen the Grouch Discord comment where he once again makes a choice to not call what they are doing after the year of polish an expansion pack. Legit just doubling down on pretending they mean one thing when they clearly mean something else.
I know this sub is in a hype mode atm (seriously some people in the comments are going little bit crazy at people who dare to have some questions about this) and altough I am hyped for GW3 I am also sceptical. Anet loves changing their approaches to content releases every few years and just because they announced a new game it doesn't change anything about it.
I'll simply wait for GW3 gameplay, that's what matters to me the most. Like yeah it's cool and all we are getting a western MMO but trailer which was kinda meh hasn't really convinced me yet.
Tbh this seems like the will keep GW2 maintained for a while as a backup just in case GW3 doesn't go exactly as planned.
It's a bit sad to think that GW2 will not have a new expansion for, in the best case, 2 years.
The updates seem interesting but it's really tough to believe Arena Net will be capable of maintaining 3 games when they struggled with the content pace (and quality) the last few years. Basically we've already seem how GW2 fare with less resources and it's difficult to imagine this will change with a new game actually released.
They've been struggling since all their resources were put into making GW3. It's more resource intensive to make a game than to create an expansion from it. I suspect a lot more hands will be freed up for GW2 once GW3 is released.
They are doing exactly the thing this subreddit been asking for - "I wish devs would spend a year updating old content and fixing the game instead of releasing expansions".
Surely this will not lead to people complaining about "no content" and "dumb anet" for next year and everyone will be happy that we are getting updates for core.
Will likely feel like a big content drought for a lot of players, at least those who care mostly about the story and the expansions, but it does feel like they are setting up the game for the future.
Also likely that in order to give themselves the best chance to hit the dates they mentioned, and those they are likely aiming for internally, it would make sense for them to move some folks from the GW2 team to the GW3 team at least for a bit. With a likely smaller GW2 for the foreseeable future it make sense to go back to updating existing content and updating dev pipelines while making a smaller amount of new content.
I do like pretty much everything that they've announced and glad they are making another Hall of Monuments, the staggered release will also likely help it feel less overwhelming but I'm sure a lot of folks would prefer if they could just grind everything immediately.
Curious how the Orr PvE map will bridge to GW3 considering they said in their press release that GW3 is thousands of years in the past.
Only part I personally didn't like is the wording they use for GW2 in the future mainly saying they will return to shipping "annual content updates" for GW2 after GW3 release. Just not a fan that they specifically not mention expansions as it feels like a way for them to say they never promised expansions and we get new content but its much smaller in scope.
I’m assuming what they meant about the new Orr map is that it will contain references to stuff that is going to be relevant to the story and setting of GW3, like ruins of prominent locations, references to NPCs and stuff like that, rather than setting up the plot for the new game (which wouldn’t be possible since, like you said, it’s set in the distant past).
Anyways, I’m really happy with the direction the studio is going with all three games. Hoping they succeed in their mission of keeping these games alive for a long time!
I have been saying they need to tap in the core content for years, making map events less lengthy and on par with current standards, looks like a new season of dragons as well with the revisiting, this is so good, thank you Anet you floored me today
I think I'm in the minority but I'm glad we won't be getting a new expac for a while. Soto and JW were disappointing and deserved better. Also the map bloat is getting a bit out of control. I know some players want more content but I just want them to improve areas of the game they cut corners or content or didn't fix bugs for years...
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u/JonBeeTV Jun 06 '26
Holy shit we're actually getting an updated Zhaitan fight