In 2023, ArenaNet switched to an annual expansion plan for Guild Wars 2—smaller, but more frequent expansions that rolled out in stages across an entire year. The benefit has been a more consistent release schedule. But there are downsides too. The first of these expansions, Secrets of the Obscure, felt like it was trying to pack too much into its limited development schedule—its ambition in terms of story far outstripping what ArenaNet had the time to make. Despite plenty of positives, it ultimately felt rushed and underdeveloped.
Last year's Janthir Wilds was more assured, taking valuable lessons from SotO in terms of its scope. It launched with one of the best maps in recent memory (alongside a second that was simply OK), and brought a handful of features that made for a promising first impression. It put its best foot forward, but then ran out of steam. What followed in the subsequent updates was… fine, mostly, but paled in comparison to the expansion's opening salvo, and didn't make the most of the concepts the story was teasing.
Visions of Eternity, then, is another shot at proving this annual expansion plan has the juice. It's the best opening act of an annual expansion yet—nicely building upon what worked in Janthir Wilds with two dense new maps and a major addition to buildcrafting.
A low-key opening sequence sets up the basic premise: the Inquest—an outfit of evil asuran scientists—have set sail for the fabled island of Castora. The player, alongside an almost comically mismatched selection of former allies, follow along, figuring that whatever they're doing is probably worth stopping.
It's a refreshingly small start for Guild Wars 2's tropical island adventure. Where previous expansions let themselves get bogged down in the tectonic shifts of political allegiances—the discovery of the Wizards Court, the forming of the Tyrian Alliance—and the lengthy conversations they require, Visions gets to the point relatively quickly. Inquest bad. Hey, Rytlock's here too. More than some big expansion-sized threat, it feels like the start of an old Living World season, which is no bad thing given the quality of some of those releases.
The first map, Shipwreck Strand, is lush; a beautiful landscape full of sand, sea and shipwrecks. Quickly you stumble upon a village of castaways—Tyrian explorers who set out to discover the lost lands of Castora, but who failed to successfully navigate the magically-infused fog that surrounds the island. Lacking a means to return to the central continent, they've built a society here. Multiple, in fact, with the more civilised Hullgardeners at war with the pirate freebooters.
It lends the map a natural flow that parallels Janthir's Lowland Shores. To the east is civilisation, a village built out of ships like a mini version of the original Lion's Arch and a pub that acts as Canach's new business venture. To the west, danger—the Inquest and their new pirate allies.
Each recent expansion has picked out one of Guild Wars 2's mounts for extra attention, with a new mastery line that expands its skillset. SotO had the Skyscale, Janthir Wilds the Warclaw, and Visions of Eternity focuses on the Skimmer—the game's underwater mount. As a result, Shipwreck Strand also has plenty going on under the sea. The underwater sections of the map are built for exploration rather than events or combat, with a sprawling tunnel system that connects hidden coves.
It lends the map an exploration focus that, ever since the introduction of mounts back in Path of Fire, has often felt missing from the game. So far I've only found about half of the coves scattered underneath the map. And sure, I could just go look them up on GW2's exhaustive official wiki, but it's been nice to know there are still secrets lurking in this half of the expansion.
The second map, Starlit Weald, trades tropical beaches for dense, vibrant jungle. It's a well-worn biome for Guild Wars, sure, but Castora's more mystical focus helps it stand out from Heart of Thorns' Maguuma region. Here we battle more of the Inquest's cybernetically altered fauna, and push towards the ancient Seer ruins that house the island's deeper mysteries. It's big and it looks nice, but the real triumph is simply that it feels dense with stuff—frequent events and activities triggering as you explore. It's a marked improvement over Janthir Wilds' second map, which was big, sure, but did relatively little with the space—sparse open landscapes that offered little but the chance to kill elementals and titans.
Basically, ArenaNet has got something here. The story—never my main reason for playing this game—has been decent enough, and does a good job of getting out of its own way. The exploration has felt meaningful, and the events plentiful and varied. More crucially, there's a satisfying reward loop in both maps. As you complete events, you earn key charges that can be spent on hidden chests around the map, earning decent rewards for actually participating across the map.
Even more notable, the new elite specs make a massive difference to how impactful this expansion feels. After previous annual expansions simply added a new weapon for each profession, having a full new elite spec is a much more meaningful change. New profession mechanics means new ways to play, and that does a lot to make this expansion feel like a major overhaul to the combat sandbox.
I've spent most of my time with the new Thief spec, the Antiquary. The beta test earlier this year had me worried—it was a spec that, at the time, felt like a barely upgraded version of core Thief, just with randomly acquired 'artifact' skills that barely made a difference to play. The release version gets around the problem by making a fairly simple change; each artifact now gets an additional unique buff that can be situationally game changing. It's a more complex spec that feels rewarding, although based on its current DPS benchmarks, it will no doubt catch a nerf or two in the coming months.
Generally it feels like most elite specs landed well—at least outside of some usability and performance requests. If there's a clear winner in terms of what you'll likely encounter in the open world, it's probably the new Ritualist spec for Necromancers. Good damage, low-APM, and it supports the summoner class fantasy better than other Necro elite specs. The downside is that it's by far the most visually noisy spec. If you thought it was a bit much when Engineers got mechs back in End of Dragons, good luck seeing what's going on when every Necro rocks up and places down three large ghosts around an arena.
In so many ways, Visions of Eternity is a small-scale triumph. But it's also hard to say what the ultimate legacy of this expansion will be. With the two previous expansions limping towards their finish, it's more important than ever that VoE's major updates deliver. If the pattern repeats—a strong start squandered by scant updates that underdeliver—it's going to be really difficult for ArenaNet to continue to insist that this annual cadence is viable.
The plan this time is to focus the next major update on quality of life features, giving the development team more time to cook on the story and maps of the final two updates. If it works—if this expansion can actually stick the landing—then great. But even then the risk is the annual expansion cycle becomes too formulaic each release. In terms of what's been delivered here, the parallels between Janthir Wilds and Visions of Eternity are pretty stark. In terms of the quality, we're looking at small refinements and degrees of quality that separate them. The risk is maps start to feel samey in a game that once revelled in more experimental rolling event maps like Drizzlewood Coast or Dragonfall.
One step at a time though. For now, Visions is off to a strong start—another fun collection of activities dropped into an MMO that, thanks to its horizontal progression, keeps every new release relevant throughout the lifetime of the game. Now it's on ArenaNet to finish strong as the expansion continues to roll out across the next year.
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