The trailer for the first expansion pack of Guild Wars 2 – a massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) published by NCSOFT and developed by ArenaNet – is out.
Earlier this year, at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) South event in San Antonio, Texas, ArenaNet announced that the Guild Wars 2's first expansion pack, Heart of Thorns, would be released on October 23, 2015.
Now in anticipation of the release, ArenaNet uploaded a trailer video for Heart of Thorns on September 25, with a little less than a month to go.
While some might question why the company wouldn't go for the usual cinematic trailers that most developers produce to promote their upcoming games and expansion packs, those in the Guild Wars 2 community dismiss this as a trivial matter. They couldn't be happier that ArenaNet is sticking to the announced expansion pack release date.
Prior to Heart of Thorns, ArenaNet introduced changes and developments through feature packs Living Story Season 1 and Living Story Season 2, which had eight episodes – from the Gates of Maguuma to Point of No Return – added gradually since the release of Season 1 in June 2013.
Heart of Thorns will build upon the existing storyline and will introduce a new region called the Heart of Maguuma, as well as new group challenges through fresh raid content, a new profession and new profession specializations. There will also be improvements on PvP and mass PvP (World vs. World) mechanics, and an account-based mastery system, which will be available for those who have level 80 characters.
Guild Wars 2, which was released in August 28, 2012, is a sequel to the 2005 MMORPG Guild Wars. Following the popularity of its predecessor, Guild Wars 2 has sold more than 5 million copies as of August 2015. Thereafter, the base game launched as free-to-play title.
However, the coming expansion pack, Heart of Thorns, will need to be purchased. The Standard edition is listed at $49.99, the Deluxe at $74.99 and the Ultimate at $99.99. All editions are available for pre-purchase.
