Guild Wars 2 Q&A – ArenaNet on Switch to Yearly Expansions, Secrets of the Obscure Learnings, and 2024 Updates

wccftech.com:

Following the MMORPG's 10-year anniversary celebrated last year, ArenaNet has picked up steam (partly thanks to joining Valve's namesake store) with the ongoing development of Guild Wars 2.

The Bellevue-based developer released the fourth expansion, Secrets of the Obscure, in August, and there's more coming between free content and paid expansions with the new yearly model. Wccftech had the opportunity to access the studio's end-of-year blog post in advance, where ArenaNet confirmed Secrets of the Obscure has been a financial success and promised that the next update (which includes new story chapters, the Temple of Febe Strike Challenge Mode, nine new weapon proficiencies, the ability to unlock the new legendary armor, and a Wizard's Vault reward refresh) would arrive early next year.

At the same time, we were able to set up a chat with Game Director Josh Davis to discuss the big changes to the game's development pace, their learnings from the Secrets of the Obscure, and what the future looks like for Guild Wars 2.

There was a 4.5 year-span between 2017's Path of Fire and 2022's End of Dragons. Now, though, you've settled on a much quicker pace for the expansions. What prompted this change? Will you attempt to keep the yearly expansion model for the foreseeable future?

There are two main drivers behind this change. First, we want to provide a better game experience to fans by adopting a more consistent release cadence, eliminating extended ‘content droughts’, and increasing support for the core game (WvW, Fractals, etc.). Second, we wanted to adopt a dev cycle that would allow our team to maintain a healthy work/life balance. We’re in a marathon, not a sprint. The structure of this approach allows us to take a long-term