Even now, a month after launch, it’s
hard to predict what its enduring
legacy will be. But one thing is for
certain: End of Dragons makes a great
first impression.
The campaign is the
strongest Guild Wars 2
has delivered yet. In
pursuit of a band of sky
pirates, the player
crashes into the
continent of Cantha –
triggering a diplomatic
incident that results in
the region being
reopened to the outside world for the
first time in hundreds of years. As the
vanguard of this new era of trade and
tourism, you’re quickly embroiled in
the problems of the region.
Broadly I enjoy what ArenaNet
has done here. Guild Wars 2 ’s writing
has varied over the years, but tonally
it can often feel too sarcastic. Here,
instead, it’s breezy – a fun adventure
even as the story becomes steadily
darker. Its characters are given
enough space to work through their
feelings as events unfold, but there’s a
lightness to the delivery.
More than before, the expansion
takes Guild Wars 2 ’s current
touchstones and structures them to
create an obvious learning curve for
players. For the first time, there’s an
area in the open world that explains
and demonstrates concepts like
combo fields and defiance bars. That
knowledge is then reinforced through
the story, and put to the test out in
events – most dramatically on the
game’s final map. Built around its
showpiece boss fight, Dragon’s End is
the most mechanically complex boss
in the open-world. It’s spectacular.
And if you can complete it, you’re
more than prepared to enter Strike
missions – the current home of Guild
Wars 2 ’s instanced endgame. The
progression seems natural, and will
hopefully result in more players
feeling comfortable
tackling the game’s
more rewarding
endgame activities.
Following the
template set out by
Guild Wars 2 ’s first
expansion, End of
Dragons also introduces
a new suite of features
earned and upgraded through the
Masteries XP system. It’s an eclectic
collection: fishing, skiffs, a little robot
companion, a new mount, and a new
hub zone that is home to the
expansion’s Strike missions, as well as
vendors, services, and even a resting
XP bonus. These are some nicequality-of-life improvements, but
they don’t fundamentally change my
relationship with the game. Fishing is
fun, but it’s mostly self-contained.
Skiffs similarly don’t feel like they
have a purpose when the Skimmer
mount already exists.
The Jade Bot is the most useful.
It’s a jack-of-all-trades – offering a
suite of options including a personal
waypoint that you can place and
teleport back to, an upward boost
while gliding, and a free resuscitation
when you’re downed. It also lets you
use the ziplines and terminals
scattered around the End of Dragons’
maps. It’s an eclectic tool in an
already eclectic feature set, and while
that gives it broad utility, it also
means it’s not as obviously desirable
as Path of Fire’s mounts.
End of Dragons is a quality
expansion, but also one that’s arriving
at a point when Guild Wars 2 at large
is going through a major transition.
After years of what felt like neglect,
the game has a renewed focus:
moving to DirectX 1 1, revitalising
World vs World through a new
Alliances system, undergoing broad
changes to profession and
specialisation balance. In this sense,
despite its name, End of Dragons isn’t
really an end. It may close out the
Elder Dragon saga, but in every other
sense it’s a continuation of a game
with a long, complicated, and
sometimes messy history, that
nonetheless seems committed to
refreshing itself for the future.
End of Dragons carves a place for
itself alongside nearly a decade’s
worth of maps, events and endgame
challenges. That the quality of what it
adds so often exceeds what came
before leaves me hopeful that Guild
Wars 2 ’s best days are still to come.81
A worthy send-off to the
Elder Dragon saga,and a
good reason to be
optimistic about the
future of the game.VERDICT
S
ince the release of End of Dragons, I’ve spent as much time in
Guild Wars 2 ’s older maps as I have in its new Canthan region.
This is an MMO that, in the nine years since its release, has
never raised its level cap. The gear and weapons you earned
before remain just as relevant today. In that context, End of
Dragons doesn’t just need to be good in isolation, but has to weave itself
into the larger tapestry of the endgame.
END OF THE BEGINNING
As GUILD WARS 2 hits its tenth anniversary, END OF DRAGONS reckons with its futureBy Phil SavageThe campaign
is the
strongest Guild
Wars 2 has
delivered yetNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
The third expansion,
and the finale to the
MMO’slong-running
Elder Dragon saga
EXPECT TO PAY
£26
DEVELOPER
ArenaNet
PUBLISHER
NCSoft
REVIEWED ON
Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB
RAM, RTX3080TiMULTIPLAYER
MMOLINK
guildwars2.comTURTLE POWER
Anatomy of the new mount1
2
3
4
5
Guild Wars 2 : End of Dragons
REVIEW
82
3
CANNONS
The gunnercan
fire a volley that
annihilate buildings.
Hence the ‘siege’
part of Siege Turtle.4
JUMPJETS
Turtles are
traditionallyslow,
but this one is rocket
powered. And once
it’s gone up...5
FEET
...It comesback
down. Heavily,thanks
to the slam attack
that knocks down
targets within range.2
PASSENGERS
A two-seated
saddle has room for
two players, one to
drive and the other
to shoot.1
ARMOUR
Thanks toa hard
outer shell and
weathered,leathery
face, the Siege Mount
has 40,000 health.