The latest chapter of the Guild Wars 2 Living Story kicks off today with The Icebrood Saga and I got the chance to check out its prologue content, Bound By Blood, a few days early last week alongside some developers and other press.
For those that have been following along, The Icebrood Saga picks up immediately after where Season Four left off. This is good news for ongoing players that have stuck around throughout the years, but also means it’s a relatively fresh jumping in point if you’re new.
Zhaitan has been dead and gone since the conclusion of the base game’s story, Mordremoth was defeated in Heart of Thorns, and then Kralkatorrik was taken down with the help of Aurene’s ascension in Living World Season Four. Now, we turn our attention to the remaining three Elder Dragons.
Something sinister is brewing in the Far Shiverpeak Mountains, the hibernation place of Jormag, Elder Dragon of Ice and Persuasion, but the Prologue’s plot in Bound By Blood is more of an interlude before the action heats up again.
I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, but it sets the stage for what should be another good continuation of the Living Story in Tyria. Most of my time checking out Bound By Blood early focused on the new zone (the homeland of the Blood Legion, Grothmar Valley) and all of the new activities within it.
Visually it’s now one of my all-time favorite zones throughout all of Guild Wars 2’s version of Tyria. There’s a great amount of diversity in terms of designs without sacrificing flow as every biome and region connects seamlessly. There’s a lot of nuance and layering going on as well so it feels larger than it looks on the map, just like all of the other best zones in the game.
During one diversion we floated across the sky on hovering platforms while shooting down targets using bona fide third-person over-the-shoulder shooter controls, we battled in a destruction derby-style cooperative PvP mini game, and we also got to check out a ton of the new unlockable items and customization effects. The Wardrobe and Dying systems in Guild Wars 2 are still some of the best in the genre in terms of visual flair and personalization.
But the real highlight of the zone is the rock concert. One of the repeatable events sees a group of Charr warriors literally band together to form the Metal Legion. They get up on stage and perform a trio of heavy metal songs complete with shredding guitar solos, guttural vocals, and thunderous drums.
Then what really made this event kick even more Charr tail is that it was extremely frantic and full of dynamic objectives. The goal was to get the audience as hyped as possible, which meant fulfilling timed mini missions during every song. The individual objectives included jumping up and down in mosh pits, typing /cheer into the chat to get attendees hooting and hollering more, fighting off rabid stage rushers, standing in the right spot to aid crowd surfers, fixing busted amps, and more. Then it all ended in a big climactic fight against a fiery beast that erupted on stage during the last song. The heavy metal music backing all of this made it even more fun and really did a nice job of leaning into the slightly ridiculous but not completely silly tone that ArenaNet has perfected in Guild Wars 2.
Understanding how to start playing Guild Wars 2 is a little bit complicated, but essentially if you purchase the Path of Fire version of the game that includes the latest expansion, plus the previous expansion (Heart of Thorns) as well as immediately access to The Icebrood Saga once it begins. You can get that for $29.99, no subscription fee at all, but other tiers exist with added perks.
If you want to try it out to see if you like it, the base game is completely free-to-play and download.
