Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2’s open world is all about discovery and exploration. Check your content guide for suggestions when you set out on your adventures, consult your compass to find interesting landmarks…or just pick your favorite direction to travel in and let adventure find you. Tyria is full of characters with their own stories and goals, and you’ll be rewarded for helping them out—or thwarting their plans—by completing renown hearts and dynamic events. Read our new player guide for more tips!
When you meet other players in the open world, you don’t need to join their party to lend a helping hand, investigate a secret jumping puzzle, or team up against a deadly world boss. Don’t grind; play the way you want to play! Whether you’re reviving defeated players, rescuing soldiers from a Risen onslaught, or gathering herbs, you’ll earn experience points.
Arm your character with an arsenal of new weapons as you play. Every profession wields them differently, and each type has its own playstyle, which you can refine and customize by unlocking and equipping hundreds of skills and traits. If you want to jump straight into structured PvP, go for it—every player competes at the same level, with access to the max-level gear and build options you need to make your mark.
If you love fashion, express yourself with the perfect character design! When you equip new weapons and armor, you’ll unlock their skins in your wardrobe. Make them truly yours with thousands of possible combinations and a massive selection of collectible dyes.
Upgrade your free account with a Guild Wars 2 expansion and get access to log-in rewards, additional character and bag slots, expanded chat features, and more. Visit the Black Lion Trading Company in the game and use your Steam Wallet to upgrade.
Expansions and Living World seasons feature unique rewards and new Masteries to expand your character’s abilities. Unlock and upgrade your glider in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, befriend a stable of mounts with powerful movement skills in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, and learn to fish and pilot a skiff in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Each expansion grants access to nine elite specializations that unlock new weapon choices, skills, and abilities for your profession. You’ll also be able to select the revenant profession at character creation and channel legendary heroes and villains from Tyria’s history.
Living World seasons continue the Guild Wars 2 story between expansions and must be purchased separately through your Story Journal or in Gem Store bundles. Play Living World episodes to unlock new explorable zones, rewards, and Masteries.
*Living World episodes become playable at level 80. Players may need to relaunch the game for the upgrade to take effect.
**Please note that existing Guild Wars 2 player accounts cannot be accessed via Steam
Steam User 241
The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2, is that it's available in two different variants, which are Mutually Incompatible. The first, and the original, is the NCSoft variant, downloadable from the official ArenaNet website; the other one is the Steam variant, downloadable from the Steam store. Both variants have access to the exact same content, and the players play together regardless of which one they use.
However, accounts you create are separate for each. This means that when you buy expansions, you have to buy them from the same site you've downloaded the base game from. Any cash shop purchases are also site-specific - the ones purchased while playing on one platform wouldn't be usable within another.
So which one should you choose? They each have their advantages and drawbacks:
"The ArenaNet" version:
Has a much better choice of bundles you can purchase, often a better selection of "freebies" offered with each one, and, reportedly, better customer support. Also If you are a returning player who purchased anything from the ArenaNet site in the past, you will be much better off sticking with them - accessing your existing ArenaNet account via Steam is only possible if you bypass the Steam launcher. I would not describe the method here, as it has been described many times before.
However, this version has a very serious drawback: Sometimes, your purchases on the official site don't come through! This happens regardless of whether you buy expansions or gems, and regardless of whether you've made a successful purchase in the past. The error messages tend to be very generic. Possible reasons for those messages include, but are not limited to: your browser's ad blocker; your browser's built-in security features; Javascript not being enabled; and even, it seems, using a Visa card (even the debit one) to make your purchase. I have made at least 10 attempts over the course of 5 days to purchase a bundle specific to the ArenaNet store, done everything recommended by the support team, but was unable to resolve the issue.
The Steam version:
Fewer bundles, and, reportedly, the customer support isn't as good. However when I got tired of my "epic quest" with trying to buy expansions off the ArenaNet site, I turned to Steam. My purchase was as easy as with all the other Steam games I've bought over the years - it worked first time, with not a single error message in sight! I got the first season of the Living Story thrown in for free, a shared inventory slot and a level 80 boost. That's despite buying the cheapest bundle!
So why should you try Guild Wars 2 in the first place? Here are my top 3 reasons:
1. Business model. As far as I know, GW2 is the only MMO on the market that uses a "Buy-to-Play, no subscription at all" model, while Also having a free trial to max level, with relatively few restrictions. So if you like the game after trying it out, you only need to make one "semi-compulsory" expansion purchase to remove those restrictions - after that, all purchases are on "what you want, when you want, if you want" basis.
2. Player freedom. Unlike traditional MMO quests, renown hearts and dynamic events require you to simply turn up in the area to take part. Not needing to run to and from the quest giver (unless you want to) gives the gameplay a natural "flow"
3. The best game to play with a friend! Resource nodes are "instanced" to each player, so you can harvest from them even if someone just did it right before you. Any player can revive any other regardless of race, class, or being grouped with them. And if a friend needs your help with doing their Personal Story quest, they only need to group with you to invite you into their instance. You can even choose to get the rewards for it - class-appropriate, as if you've done it on your own!
The amount of features in GW2 is a bit overwhelming, so I suggest you watch two YouTube videos to get you started: "A Beginners Guide to Guild Wars 2" by Josh Strife Hayes, and "Everything to do in Guild Wars 2 and Why" by Mighty Teapot. Both are quite long, but very clear.
Steam User 179
Add "-provider Portal" into your launch commands and you can use your old account on Steam
Steam User 204
If you want a relaxed, easy experience in GW2, make an Engineer and go for the Mechanist specialization. You can clear all end game content with little trouble.
If robots, bombs, guns, and ranged combat aren't your style, try making a Necromancer, and specialize as a Reaper. You can clear all content with a badass scythe, cool spells, and undead minions.
If neither of those are for you, roll a Revenant and enjoy any of its specializations. They're busted and supremely powerful. The Vindicator specialization destroys everything in its path with a giant two-handed sword. What more could an MMO player want?
Don't make GW2 any harder than it needs to be. I suggest trying one of the above powerful specs, enjoying your time and experiencing the world, then consider branching out and experimenting afterwards.
Steam User 113
This is my first time writing a review, so it may be a little poorly structured or poorly worded, but I love Guild Wars 2 to bits, obviously because of my playtime. I recommend this game to anyone who wants to get into something long term. The game especially excels at being an MMO that respects your time, so I'd recommend it to any person that wants to get into an mmorpg long-term, AND anyone who doesn't have the time to play as frequently as others, like people with time demanding jobs, families to take care of and such, but still want to play a game without feeling pressured to play. I will list down the big things I like, and dislike in this game though.
GOOD:
HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
The game has horizontal progression when it comes to gear, and in short, what that means is when you get best in slot gear for your character, like exotic or ascended (The two best tiers of gear in the game), you can quit for any amount of time at any given moment-- Like say, 1 year or more and your character will not have lost any power at all, granted the 'meta' or optimal stats may change at that time, but stat swapping your gear in this game is very cheap, which means you can get back in the groove of grinding again whenever you feel like playing again.
I should say though, the only part of the game that would be really time-specific and time-gated aside from crafting legendaries (Stat-swappable gear, but has the same stats as ascended armor.) would be the seasonal events that last 20 or so days that happen every year. Though this doesn't really matter unless you want a specific weapon skin or armor piece that happens to be account-bound in game.
OPEN WORLD CONTENT
This is honestly the biggest selling point of the game for me, most mmos I've played have felt a lot like you get most of your content by queueing for a dungeon, forming a group and getting gear to move on to the next dungeon. In GW2 however, they have events called 'Meta-events' where a HUUUGE cluster of players (Like 50 or more) all gather into one instance and do an entire clear of the map together. These meta events have honestly been some of the most fun I've ever had while playing games, and all content, because of horizontal progression, stay relevant and worth doing for all players, meaning a lot of content, no matter how old still have both new players, and end game players doing them even after 10 years.
COMBAT & ACCESSIBILITY
While I feel like combat is a rather subjective topic when it comes to mmorpgs, the combat in this game is REALLY good. At least that's how I feel. The combat is a mix of tab targetting and point and click, which is rather unique to any other mmos I've played. You can also customize the combat to be more like an action rpg with having to aim like a third person game if you don't like right clicking to move the camera to look at a specific direction and such. You can also play GW2 with a controller, though from what I hear, it's a bit tricky to set up. But I know controllers are often used as a method of playing games, especially for people with physical limitations, where they map the controller's control scheme to their own device to play video games.
GEM STORE & GOLD CONVERSIONS
While this may sound like a surprise, because some are probably thinking 'Why am I mentioning the micro transaction part of the game as a good thing?' Well there is a specific part of the store that is part of the system itself, where you can convert your in-game currency into the premium currency, (gems) of this game. While there are some bad things in the store I'll touch up on later , the method of converting gold to gems is really smart I feel. Since it's not managed by players, and managed by the game itself, you don't have to worry about getting scammed at all when you wanna buy something in the store that costs gems, which is a problem in a couple of games I've played like warframe, where they do allow player to player trading from items to platinum, it still comes with the risk that you may be scammed out of your part of the deal. The gold to gems trading system in guild wars 2 isn't absurdly unreasonable either that you're forced to buy gems or spend 800+ hrs to get $5 worth of gems. Since I first got my Living World Season through the gem store completely through grinding at about 150 hours, and that time includes the amount of time grinding the main story. So it's absolutely attainable.
MEGASERVERS
Megaservers are a part of this game and only really matter when you play WvW, otherwise, your friends can pick any server they want to play on and you would still be able to play open world and instanced PvE or PvP content regardless of which server you picked, so long as you're both on the same region, NA or EU.
NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE/ONE TIME PAYMENT SYSTEM
The game's main mode of monetization are the DLCs and the gem store. The DLCs of this game are the only thing you can't buy through in-game grinding, and you're actually required to pay a fixed amount of money to get some of the best content in the game. I can say with confidence that if you have the money, the DLCs are absolutely worth it, no doubt.
disclaimer
There are however a bit of quirks I have problems with, I don't feel that it warrants a negative review, and overall doesn't make the game horrible by any means at all, since some of the things that I mention may not affect others in a playthrough, or may seem VERY nitpicky, but I think these problems are worth mentioning anyway.
PROBLEMS
THE 'FREE TO PLAY' (NO DLC) EXPERIENCE IS PRETTY BAD...
I cannot, in good faith, no matter how much I love this game recommend it to someone who doesn't plan on buying DLCs. As the game locks you out of a lot of key features such as the Trading Post, which is how I personally got like 90% of my in-game money, being unable to send players mail, unable to whisper players that aren't mutually friends with you, and map-chat (global chat) being limited. AND convering GOLD -> GEMS being restricted, and having some objectively better subclasses locked behind DLC, which affects Free modes such as WvW and PvP, and mounts. So if you don't plan on getting the DLCs, unless you're willing to put up with this experience, I wouldn't recommend it at all. You can see the full list of restrictions here.
SOME CONTENT IS LOCKED FROM THE STEAM LAUNCHER
Being new to the game, I made my Guild Wars 2 account on steam when I got the game, and having experienced it, there's this specific line of achievements that gets you a title known as 'Gods Walking Amongst Mere Mortals' otherwise known as 'GWAMM.' I didn't know about this up until I was already about 800+ hours into the game, and since I had such an amazing time in Guild Wars 2, I had wanted to try out Guild Wars 1 anyway and one of the main motivators was to get this title, not only because it looks cool, but also because there's 500 or so achievement points locked behind this achievement. Upon learning that I can't get this achievement because my account is on steam, kind of annoyed me because some achievement point landmarks (mostly every 5,000 AP) gets you a free 400 gems you can spend on the gem store. And there is no way to link your GW1 account to your GW2 Account if your GW2 account is made on steam. Which kind of sucks and annoys me a bit, but by no means makes the game unplayable. So in order to get this, I'd have to RESET from a fresh, ANet account, abandoning my 1,000 hours of progress, and money spent on DLC on this account. So if you're like me and might want this later on, don't do what I did, and get an ANet account. I duly hope a workaround about this appears sometime in the near future.
Steam User 146
If your like I was a month ago, and you are thinking to yourself "I wish I had a good MMO to play now that most of the ones I played when younger are slowly being turned into trash". Well then you kinda found a good game to bide your time. I've never had the pleasure of playing a game that values your time as much as Guild Wars 2. Everything is very achievable, just given time.
Your not going to get the classic MMO experience with this game. Yes the combat is very similar, except for the dodge ability, but the base mechanics are very wild. For starters, you don't have a GCD. Each ability has a specific Cool Down. This means that you can now Queue ability uses (To a max of 2 abilities at any given point in time) so that instead of thinking "What's the next ability in line" it's "What's the ability after next". This allows you to focus more on mechanics.
The Traditional MMO "Trinity" of Tank, Healer, DPS is a bit skewed in this game as well. Tanking is a specific role that is usually covered by a healer, since they can stand in one place and do their job, and they have gear that gives them the highest toughness. There is no taunts, if an enemy needs to be tanked, it's either "The first person to hit the enemy" or "The person with the highest Toughness Stat". There are other "Sub-Roles" in each raid and strike, but the main must haves is Alacrity generators, and Quickness Generators. There are both Heal and DPS version of each generator, called a Boon DPS. They are always required, where as other jobs, such as Pusher, Kiter, or Tank, are a "per-Fight" basis.
Finally, Gearing. Gearing is a bit funky. Once you hit max level, you'll most likely have a wonky full set of Exotic gear. However, the stats arn't going to be exactly perfect. So your first goal is a full set of Exotic gear that melds with your abilities. You can use a build, or theory craft something yourself, but there is no "You must use meta builds" rule in this game. As long as you can do mechanics and apply a minor to moderate amount of damage to a boss, you'll get along fine.
After Exotic gear, you get Ascended gear. This gear is Bind on Account so you can transfer it between multiple characters. This is also the highest your recieved stats will get. Full Ascended gear is "Gearing Complete". However, there is one more option, and this is where the game get's most of it's play loop.
You can craft Legendary Gear. Currently, you can get a legendary for every single slot in the game, and every armor type in the game, including "relics" which are trinkets that give you a bonus ability such as "When you dodge roll, you do increased damage".
This legendary gear has the same stats as Ascended gear, but with a few caveats.
First, you can change the stats on the gear to ANY you desire on the fly, no need to do fancy craftin recipes or mystic forge nonsense, just plug and play.
And finally, and this is the biggest thing: IT DOES NOT TAKE UP AN INVENTORY SLOT. It has a "Legendary Armory" that you can equip it from anywhere, any time, on any toon, save the armor, which is class specific (Heavy, medium, and light armor respectively)
This is called Horizontal Progression. Your not getting bigger and better, your getting convenience, your unlocking achievements, doing weird challenges for legendary materials. There is no "New expansion? Everything else is irrelevant except the new stuff" it's just 'Some of the new stuff is pretty cool and slightly better on some classes, but you can still use any of the other expansions stuff just as effectively."
i highly recommend this game if you have a hole in your heart for the grind, but want the game to value your time rather than making you suffer the entire way through it.
Steam User 100
I don't write long-form reviews like this, but I have to change that. Guild Wars 2 is a great game with lots of activities to participate in and secrets to discover.
It's an MMO for folks who might not like "traditional" MMOs; it respects your time and does not force you to log in every day to stay up to date.
Its horizontal progression means you can stop playing, come back in 3 years, and have your gear still be relevant. If you're unsure of what horizontal progression means, it boils down to vertical progression having a gear and number grind to complete content whereas horizontal progression focuses more on how you actually play the game.
The progression in Guild Wars 2 is not defined by its gear chase, but rather your character abilities and account-wide unlocks. Action-based combat where skill is rewarded compared to strictly having the best gear to deal damage is fantastic. There are, of course, long-term grinds and objectives for folks who want to chase that, but it is by no means necessary to participate in anything but the highest end of content. Exotic gear found off the player marketboard is rather inexpensive and will be more than enough for the majority of players.
The mounts in this game are the BEST of this genre, bar none. Each one fills a specific role and they all feel satisfying to roam around the overworld with. Getting these mounts helps with world completion, which ties into getting rarer materials, more XP, and event completion for some achievements. This game is perfect for people who tire of doing the same thing all the time and enjoy variety. Dropping an activity to do something else is welcome and even rewarded.
While exploring the world, you might find some enemies that actually pose a challenge. As expected, the early level enemies are easy. As you progress and unlock more parts of the map, however, enemies will slowly start getting harder; showing up in greater numbers, being more aggressive, having more health, and being a higher enemy tier such as veteran or champion are some of the ways that Guild Wars 2 starts to slowly scale the difficulty. Note that you will always sync down to the area's level, so while you can overlevel enemies, its significance is negated after a certain threshold. GW2 sets you up for success for the later areas, as those have some pretty difficult mobs if you're not ready for them. The game strikes a good balance between being AFK easy and being quite challenging. Your skills are mostly tested in fixed points such as a story mission or a meta event, so you aren't ever blindsided by a difficulty spike. This isn't so much the case in expansion areas, but by the time you reach those areas, you should be ready to tackle some harder mobs.
The best part of Guild Wars 2 is its pay-to-play monetization model. Currently, there are four expansions (with the first two expansions being bundled into a single purchase) which do NOT require a subscription fee to access. Combined with its horizontal progression, the permanent access to these areas makes playing through the expansions a stress-free ride. No worrying about finishing a mount collection or obtaining those last few mastery points before your subscription runs out. You are free to play through these expansions at your own leisure, and there is no penalty if you decide to drop it and go do something else in the game. Guild Wars 2 is the most chill MMO I have ever played, and is a great game to have on the side if your "main" game isn't keeping you engaged.
While this is all good, the game does have some faults.
Gearing for the first time is not obvious-- there are numerous types of gear substats that impact classes differently. For example, there are multiple types of DPS-focused substats (called attributes) like power, precision, and expertise, but the distribution and allocation of these attributes is different for every piece of armor. There are 8 total attributes and finding the correct one for your class can be confusing if not following a build (which you should not worry about until level 80). In short, be prepared to do external research to see what gear best fits your character needs.
Speaking of external research, it is difficult to find your way around the game's world and systems. There are countless currencies, materials, and consumables that make playing without a wiki tab open nigh impossible. Good luck finding recipes and crafting items without the wiki. Given enough time, you'll eventually wrap your head around what is important to you and what isn't. I'm personally still learning a lot and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm sitting at 1k hours still wondering what exactly something is. If you prefer to keep all of your experience in the game or like to play and find out, Guild Wars 2 is not the game for you. The /wiki command helps with this, but it is nonetheless an external resource.
Finding out what to do at max level can also be very overwhelming. There is just so many things to do that it can leave players with decision paralysis. I mean, you have mastery points to obtain, world completion, expac/living world stories, PvP and WvW (which seems to be actually good? shocking in an MMO), raid content, crafting, world bosses, fashion chase... there is just.. So. Much. Stuff. Picking what to do in this situation is an uncomfortable space to be in. Your best bet as a fresh 80 character is to just pick something and stick to it.
Another point worth bringing up is Guild Wars 2's living worlds. Living worlds act as the game's seasonal content that takes place between each expansion. The living world idea was retired and is no longer being added to the game, but the existing ones have stayed. The living worlds themselves are not a problem, but the way you access them does not make much sense. Living world content has to be purchased and there is no way around it. You have a few options, with one of them being converting in-game currency to the paid currency. It is technically possible, but with each chapter being 200 gems individually (or a varying cheaper price when bundled), you're going to be spending a lot more time than it is worth grinding access to every LW chapter. You also have the option to buy the $100 complete collection, but that is a high immediate asking price. It's actually good value and you will be saving money in the long run, but that's given you even make it to that point. You might bounce off the game after deciding to buy the complete collection and feel ripped off as a result. Your final option is to buy the LWs through gems, which is what I ended up doing. I didn't feel confident buying the collection in case I never saw that content, but since I ended up sticking with it, I decided to buy it when it went on sale in the gem store. Since LWs have been retired, they should either become way cheaper if not free, or be thrown into the HoT/PoF bundle and have its price increased as a result.
With all of that said, when my main points of contention boil down to "too much to do" and sensory overload, I would still absolutely recommend this game to anyone who might be even a little interested. The F2P version gives you the entire base Guild Wars 2 maps and story. It is a hell of a lot of content and not even I have seen the entire map. I've been busy doing other stuff, like working on my Griffon mount and leveling my crafters to prepare for a legendary weapon grind.
On the whole, Guild Wars 2 is an MMO that does its own thing and breaks the mold of the MMORPG genre. It delivers a wholly new experience that its peers should learn from even 11 years later. Thanks for reading.
Steam User 136
Already have an arena.net account? Set launch options:
-autologin -provider Portal
Then if needed, buy the DLCs from arena.net website instead of steam.
Hope this help :)