Image: ArenaNet
Guild Wars 2 is celebrating its tenth anniversary by hopping over to Steam.
Guild Wars 2 will finally arrive on Steam next week, an entire decade after its original release in 2012. This also marks the first time developer ArenaNet has made its MMORPG available on a third-party platform, though this Steam launch was planned to happen as far back as late 2020. The game hits Steam on August 23 next week. Better late than never, right?
Here’s the announcement video:
Guild Wars 2 celebrates its ten-year anniversary this month, and the festivities don’t end with the game’s arrivals on Steam. The base game will be free for all to play, but you will have to pay to unlock its many expansions. To that end, a Complete Collection bundle will be made available on Steam for $100, allowing you to snag all the expansions and the five Living World seasons of content. One should note that existing Guild Wars 2 player accounts will be inaccessible via Steam, which means that returning players won’t be able to carry their progress over. Everyone will still play on the same servers regardless of their platform of choice.
In case you’re confused about the order of content to play through with all the expansions included, here’s the gist of it: you go from the base game to Season 1 (which is also free), then Season 2, then the Heart of Thorns expansion. After that, it’s Season 3 followed by Path of Fire. Then you play through Season 4 and 5 (the Icebrood Saga), and finally End of Dragons. An in-game story journal lists all this down very clearly, which is great, because you would be quite lost without playing through everything in order. A fourth expansion following End of Dragons is also in the works, so this is a good time to catch up.
A new balance patch will also be released for the game on August 23 to buff up core class weapons, and the game also arrives on Steam with a bunch of other quality-of-life improvements, such as the ability to get a mount while leveling up.