Guild Wars 2 trailer teases the opening of the Gates of Maguuma

The Guild Wars 2 update machine is slowly creaking back to life. After a short break, ArenaNet have begun teasing Season Two of their Living World—a long-running story chain that aims to provide far-reaching consequences for the game's inhabitants. The season will begin next week with Gates of Maguuma, which is briefly previewed in a new trailer.

"The Zephyrites have met with trouble," explains the trailer's description, "and there are rumors of a disturbance in the tangled western reaches of Brisban Wildlands. Work together with your friends and Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox, Braham, and Taimi to discover what's going on!"

If you missed Season One, many of the terms in that above paragraph will be confusing. Utilising my hundreds of hours of GW2 experience, I can provide a brief glossary to get you up to speed:

Zephyrites: owners of intricate kite-ship, er, things. Big fans of crystals, for some reason.
Brisban Wildlands: a zone on the western side of the map that nobody above level 25 has any reason to go to.
Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox, Braham, and Taimi: at various points throughout Season One, you'd be asked to stand in an instance while these NPCs performed excruciatingly slow conversations about whatever it was you were supposed to care about. Sometimes you were given a small bag of loot for enduring it.

There. All caught up. For those worried that Season Two will simply be more of the same, the update's name, along with the trailer's sandstorms, all suggest we're venturing into the currently unavailable Maguuma Wastes—the desert region that borders Brisban Wildlands.

For those who log in at any point during the release, the Living World story path will be saved to the game's new Journal feature . That means, if you would otherwise miss these individual plot beats, you can catch up any time by accessing their journal entry.

Gates of Maguuma begins on July 1st.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.