Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons Review – The Cycle, Reborn

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons, the third expansion of Arena Net’s popular MMORPG, brings players back to a foreign land following 250 years of technological development fueled by magic. End of Dragons comes at a pivotal time in the game’s history where a foundation needed to be established for the game’s core systems moving into an the future.

End of Dragons has finally brought players back to Cantha, a beloved region of the world from the original Guild Wars. But despite a rush of nostalgia for long time players fueled by the beautiful environments and music of Cantha, the story doesn’t feel particularly Canthan. Players spend the majority of the expansion pursuing the Aetherblades, a group of Tyrian sky pirates, while the Luxons and Kurzicks are almost completely absent from this new future in Cantha. The conflict between the Luxons and Kurzicks was a core element of the Factions expansion of the first game and the decision to not feature them in a Canthan Guild Wars 2 expansion is perplexing.

Guild Wars 2 has come a long way in its delivery of the story, with End of Dragons featuring well-made cutscenes throughout and a brilliant cast of new characters. But ultimately, the ending to the Elder Dragons storyline that stretches all the way back to 2007 feels a bit abrupt and it leaves the player feeling a bit empty with such an unknown future. And on top of that, the long awaited Siege Turtle mount, a selling point for the expansion, wasn’t even part of the story and is locked behind the hardest open world meta event ever added to Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2’s meta events that feature massive groups of players coming together are a staple of the game’s open world. Heart of Thorns’ Maguuma Jungle is still heavily populated to this day because of its meta event, and this is an aspect of the game where Path of Fire failed. End of Dragons includes several meta events in its first three maps that are pretty good, but may not reward the player with quite enough to maintain an active population in the long term. The fourth and final map, Dragon’s End, is entirely built around a fight against the final Elder Dragon, much like Dragon’s Stand in Heart of Thorns, and while it’s really well designed, it’s ultimately too demanding of players’ time and ability for an open world event.

New classes are always a major component of any MMORPG expansion and it’s not one of End of Dragons’ strengths. The new set of elite specializations breaking class rules is an interesting concept and they aren’t entirely bad, but they aren’t as good or thematically appealing as the ones introduced in previous expansions. Over time, some of these elite specializations may emerge as some of the better classes in the game following balance patches, but as of right now, they’re simply just ok and may not be the most commonly seen classes in the expansion’s new set of Strike Missions, which are quite good.

While Guild Wars 2’s mastery system was initially a great idea for endgame progression, it now feels like an unnecessary experience grind. The Jade Bot is an excellent quality of life addition to the game and the Siege Turtle is a fun multiplayer mount that has its own niche, but fishing and skiffs aren’t nearly as impactful as the previous expansions’ introductions of gliding or mounts, and locking elements of the new Arborstone hub area behind a mastery feels completely arbitrary. At this stage, Guild Wars 2 would be better served being a bit more selective with what is considered a mastery.

As with any other MMORPG, there are occasional bugs throughout the expansion that will have to be fixed and the content added with End of Dragons will assuredly be adjusted over time. If players are going to actively engage with this content in the distant future, the rewards will need to be improved across the expansion, the Dragon’s End meta will likely require more changes in addition to the ones ArenaNet is already making, and the new set of Strike missions will need to follow through on the promise of difficult challenge modes. Where the game goes from here remains to be seen, but Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons is exactly the kind of promising expansion the game needed to lay the foundation for its future in spite of these issues, with a core concept and some brilliant moments buoying it through the turbulence of some of its other changes.

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons is available now on PC. Screen Rant was provided with a game code for the purpose of this review.

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