Studio Update: Guild Wars 2 in Autumn and Winter 2023

Guild Wars 2 News

Oct 31

Written By Ruinir

The next update to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure has been announced! Coming with a new map, more story, and so many goodies for us to get our hands on

Going through the Veil

“Through the Veil,” the first of three major updates to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, is coming on November 7. If you already own SotO you will receive these updates come launch day!

In ‘Through the Veil,’ three new story chapters will pick up where the launch story concluded and continue the adventure as you take your first brave steps into a new world: Nayos, the Realm of Dreams. If you haven’t gotten a chance to play yet, you’ve got about two weeks to get caught up on the story so far and get ready for the next installment. For folks who have already played the launch story (or want a glimpse of it), we’ve put together a little refresher on some of the key moments that have led to our situation at the start of “Through the Veil.”

In addition to new story chapters and the opening of the third map, the Cosmic Observatory Strike Mission Challenge Mode and the Oneiros-Spun armor set will also be released on November 7. In fact, to make it simple, here’s the chart we shared at launch that shows our plans for each Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure update.

An additional six will be implemented with “Through the Veil,” completing the Rift Hunting map rotation.

Convergences

A new way to rift hunt will become available - you will be able to join into public or squad based Convergences. The new story will introduce you to the concept of Convergences and unlock the associated Inner Nayos Mastery track.

The public version of Convergences operates on a timer, while squads can open Convergences on demand with unstable Kryptis motivations acquired from tier 2 and tier 3 bounties. You’ll be able to earn an unstable Kryptis motivation each week by participating in a Convergence.

Wizard’s Vault Refresh

A new refresh of the Wizards Vault will be coming with this new update! If you are currently behind on getting the unique items from the Wizards Vault, don’t worry you will be able to still purchase them as they wont be going away!

There will be three new unique armor pieces which will work with the last unique skins we we’re able to purchase from the current vault

Weapons, Skills, and Balance

Six additional expansion relics will be available starting November 7.

Not too long after the release of “Through the Veil,” you can look forward to a skills and balance update on November 28.

On November 28th there will be a new beta test for the new weapons! This will give plenty of time to test and provide feedback for how they work and feel!

They will start sharing more information about each profession’s new weapon proficiency shortly after the release of “Through the Veil.”

World vs. World

In late January 2024, Arenanet be expanding the ways you can use your guild hall to create unique gameplay experiences with a guild hall arena update, including a selector to control which game mode rules your guild arena uses. This new feature will give you the ability to set your personal game mode in the guild hall, enabling the skills and balancing for the Player vs. Player or World vs. World game modes. In addition, they will be introducing options to select teams outside of the confines of the guild arena, giving you access to the entire map so you can battle your friends.

They will also be running another World Restructuring beta in early 2024. The WvW team has shifted their priority to releasing a live version of the guild-based World Restructuring system. Doing this allows them to get consistent live data and feedback from the community to inform our continued development and improvement. Since the last beta, they have addressed a number of issues with guild selection, queue failures, reset issues, and more. In the next beta, they will be testing the new team builder, UI updates, and bug fixes. Assuming everything goes well with that test, they will be able to move forward with turning the system on full time. No solid date has been set as of yet.