Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure - Realm of Dreams Sneak-Peek Event Overview

My own history with Guild Wars 2 is short but sweet: after getting sick of its contemporaries draining my wallet and time on the repetitive grind, a few friends talked me into trying this cool new MMO that lacked monthly subscriptions and had a deep story to experience. What followed was our group taking to the wilderness of Tyria. Though we slowly transitioned to adult life and most of us left MMOs behind, I have a fondness for the title's rather unique blend of cinematic storytelling, absolutely beautiful art style, and innovative skill system. I was, therefore, thrilled to be able to attend a sneak peek event where the devs showed us around the newest content update, Realm of Dreams.

Apparently, this happy fellow is a Skyscale!

The experience was instantly a bit different from the usual presentation, as we were given a literal tour within a special server! Given a plethora of ready-made characters to choose from, all high-level and armed to the teeth, we set off to meet up with our hosts. Each host had their own avatar present, showing off their own style and some of the armour sets and items available, such as the Skysage armour and the absolutely adorable cat tree chair. After a small meet-and-greet, we set off on our Skyscales toward our first bit of entertainment in the new area of Inner Nayos, a story mission! I, having never gotten a flying mount, had no idea what this was and struggled for quite a bit before a friendly host came back and showed me the ropes. I did find an adorable Rabbit mount, though, so I consider it a win.

The first mission had us helping Peitha battle enemy Kryptis on an honestly impressive battlefield. As we were all pretty powerful, the enemies were pretty easy, but the combat flowed between encounters quite well, even shifting from the ground to the sky as we mounted our Skyscales to take out airborne enemies! Having no idea who these characters were, I couldn’t really grasp the story as such, but the small battle was fun and varied enough for us to try the new weapon proficiencies our characters had unlocked!

I feel like we're best buds already!

After this victory, the devs wanted to show us something a bit more challenging: one of the two new legendary bosses. The fight itself was hectic, with multiple waves of enemies coming in and the field itself filled with AoE attacks to look out for. Though I was flabbergasted at first, the group as a whole soon got into the rhythm of things, organically forming teams to keep the mobs at bay and keep the colossal enemy busy! Since this was a war of attrition and we only had about an hour, the devs did their magic and we won, hooray!

After our successful story mission and vanquished legendary boss, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves! This is when the devs decided to remind us that Realm of Dreams is not without its challenges, as they took us to one of the Strike Missions, which had received a much more difficult challenge mode, the Temple of Febe. Long story short, we lasted less than a minute on three separate tries! With this sound reminder, we ended our small tour.

Here we see Sauron's younger sibling, Stanley

As someone who had played Guild Wars 2 before even the first expansion was released, this event did a lot to remind me why I used to enjoy the game so much: the story section was fun and snacky without being too difficult, the skillsets were fun and enabled trying out different builds on the fly. I had played a Necromancer way back when, but still felt at home summoning my lovely minions and revelling in my newfound proficiency with swords! If the rest of the content is similar to this, I think both challenge-seekers and story buffs will find something to keep them happy!

Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure - Realm of Dreams is available now and available for all who own the expansion.