Guild Wars 2 revealed

By Robert Purchese Published 21 March, 2007

Plus new GW expansion.

ArenaNet has revealed details of Guild Wars 2, as well as a new expansion for the existing game.

Guild Wars 2 will enter beta testing sometime in 2008, whilst the Eye of The North add-on will be available this holiday season, according to information unearthed on Blue's News.

The new game will take place hundreds of years after Guild Wars, will add four fresh races, and introduce large overhauls across the board. Campaigns will be done away with (since they ultimately made the original feel bloated), and the level cap will be raised as high as 100 - with suggestions there might not be a limit at all.

A sidekick system similar to City of Heroes looks set to be introduced, as do new companion NPCs for each player, who won't take up a party spot, but will decrease the power of the player they follow.

The click-to-move mechanic is going to be scrapped in favour of more freedom, to run, swim, or jump, and group PvP will now sit alongside huge world-battles between players, which will have no limit to their size.

Whilst instancing is very much in, it sounds as though it will be less prominent, making way to a more persistent approach this time around. You can also expect all the action to take place in one world, linked up on multiple servers so that everyone can play together.

All that and fancy new graphics will make it a serious alternative to other games on the market, as will its continued insistence on no subscription fees.

Eye of the North, the new expansion, will attempt to link the story between the first and second titles. You won't be able to transfer characters between games, but achievements are rumoured to be carried through in the Hall of Monuments.

Eye of the North will also add some kind of character development past level 20, as well as a new storyline, buckets of new armour, skills, and 10 new heroes.

Unfortunately NCsoft was unavailable to comment on whether we might see it on other platforms other than PC, but we'll let you know when we do.

Head over to the Guild Wars guru forums for more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ZuluHero #1 5 years ago

    Oh - this is good news; I was wondering when another expansion would be announced but a totally new game as well? The game still looks great today - so I can't wait to see what graphical wonders they can do in a new game :)
    Edited by 1 at 22/03/07 @ 10:21

  • RuudVanPistolrooy #2 5 years ago

    Very good news. The level 20 cap really hurt the game for me as a PvM'er. Once I had lv 20'd 2 chars and completed the game twice that was it for me. nothing left to do.

  • MaskedDave #3 5 years ago

    But... I loved that it was instanced and had campaigns! They were the best thing!

    It made the whole game seem like a Massively Co-Op RPG that I played through with my mates.

    "Once I had lv 20'd 2 chars and completed the game twice that was it for me. nothing left to do."

    Amazing, because once I'd got to the end of Half-Life 2 there was equally nothing left for me to do. Thief was the same. Oh, and Max Payne, The Longest Journey, FEAR, Call of Duty 1, 2 and 3....

    I have never understood the need for people to keep playing after they've finished a game.

  • RuudVanPistolrooy #4 5 years ago

    Me either yet a big chunk of the gamers I play online with have been bashing away at it ever since release and still are. Whether you understand it or not large chunks of people do continue playing games long after they have completed them.

  • Machina #5 5 years ago

    No level cap + reduced instancing = WoW without the fees.

    Is this really the direction in which they want to be going?

  • frag.uk #6 5 years ago

    Wow. Good luck Arenanet! My only piece of advice: Get Soule to do the music for GW2 - that man is legendary.

  • LukeFX #7 5 years ago

    I cant wait, two days ago I got a new PC and have not been off GuildWars 1, im levelling up my first character and am loving it!

    The only thing that worries me is the removal of point and click, I think point and click is top, it could be improved but overall I LOVE IT, with the removal of it does this mean u have to use keyboard arrows or wot?