A Sneak Peak Into Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds’ Newest Expansion!

Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds has been out now for a few months, allowing eager players to get to grips with the Lowlands, the Kodan, and the new titanic enemies. If you count yourself among this player base and have found yourself with few things left to do, then you’re in luck as the next expansion, Godspawn, is right around the corner with new content to experience. We were lucky enough to be given a small sneak peek behind the curtain to see what's in store.

Our guided tour kicked off, as usual, with us getting to choose from a gaggle of premade characters, all decked out with the latest in monster-slaying fashion. I opted for a Charr Herald as soon as I saw him for one sole reason (you’ll understand when you see his lovable face). Anyway, after picking our characters, we met up in enemy territory and made our way to the first sight to see: a mission to save the foremost Titan expert, Farrah.

In this small instance, we learned more details about the Titans and their relation to the powerful mist storms surrounding the Wilds. We also learned that Godspawn would touch upon the long history between the Charr and the Titans from the original Guild Wars, though I am blissfully ignorant. After “rescuing” the errant researcher — and ruining her experiments while we’re at it… oops — we continued onto the main event of our tour, Mount Balrior!

Though we were told to not divulge details on the specifics, the mountain itself was an interesting bit of design. Unlike in previous implementations, the Mount Balrior map was designed to be dynamic so it could be used in multiple different modes, such as the map for a Convergence and a Raid! With minor changes and switches the devs could fiddle with, the rugged terrain could be made to fit any need. It even had random events! The Convergence itself was a great time and used an elder Kodan telling a story to children as the “basis” of our actions. Having the deep baritone narrate our adventure was a nice touch.

The devs mentioned the first version of the upcoming Raid to be designed with a more casual audience in mind, making it a tad more approachable to those with less time to invest in gaining the best gear. However, both hard and legendary modes of the Raid are in the works and coming in future updates.

As our time with the devs wound down to its end, we were given free rein to explore both the land and the new items being added in the expansion, such as the Rot Stalker set of armour. Additionally, we were shown the absolutely stunning changes made to the Wizards Vault, with a giant dome of endless space now displaying the many items we could acquire.

Though we could have spent hours upon hours drilling the devs for details, time waits for no Charr and soon our time was up. Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds’s Godspawn seemed like a great addition and will hopefully keep eager players sated for a while!