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Guild Wars 2's Janthir Wilds was released a few days ago on August 20, 2024. Having spent some time with it, I want to share some of my thoughts. This expansion marks the second installment of ArenaNet's new style of release, one that is smaller in scope but faster to launch. The first of this style, announced after End of Dragons, was Secrets of the Obscure.
This new adventure sees players heading North of Lion's Arch to aid the Lowland Kodan, the inhabitants of Janthir. As is typical of the Commander's antics, things quickly spiral into anything but a stroll through the woods.
Those who are big fans of the in-game lore don't need to worry as this review will be spoiler-free.
The Commander once again saves the day with their greatest strength, networking
I started playing the original game soon after its launch in 2012 and one of my favorite aspects has been the lore. The game's story isn't perfect, but it shines in a place that most others never seem to prioritize enough - developing relationships. With characters and entire factions, Guild Wars 2 has always emphasized how these different groups get along or don't.
Trending
The Commander, or Wayfinder if you prefer, is the center of all these social ties in one way or another. They've traveled to every land and world known to Tyria and beyond and met countless new people and creatures along the way. It only makes sense that this individual would be well-versed in the art of relating to others and making allies.
As the story of Janthir Wilds begins, the Commander finds themselves engaged in the always turbulent throes of Tyrian politics, their favorite activity. As a result of the events at the Wizard's tower, and the related potential for more unsavory guests from the mists, the Tyrian alliance is being formed.
Delegates from each faction have gathered to maturely and eloquently bicker like teenagers and as such it's up to the Commander to help smooth things along. Throughout the different outbursts and revelations, a conclusion is finally decided. The Commander will travel to Janthir and seek to recruit the Lowland Kodan.
With the aid of their newfound friends at the Astral Ward, this representative of the alliance heads north to see new places and meet new people. As one might expect, things get complicated quickly. However, there is one silver lining. You get there via methods other than the always safe and reliable Tyrian airship.
The lands of Janthir are beautiful, fun to navigate, and plenty
As of the launch on August 20, 2024, Janthir Wilds has introduced two new maps to the world of Tyria. These new zones are Lowland Shore and Janthir Syntri, the former being the introductory zone of the expansion. ArenaNet has also announced that there will be two more maps added at later dates as part of their new progressive update process for expansions.
Immediately after arriving, you're given a stunning view of the first zone from an elevated lookout, setting the tone for the natural beauty of the land. The Lowland Kodan exist in a shamanistic harmony with the nature around them, preserving it with great respect. As such these maps are heavily wooded and teeming with diverse wildlife not seen in other parts of the world.
The infrastructure of the zone is also rather sparse and unobtrusive. The Kodan take to living in more humble abodes, typically crafted from raw materials found around them. On this subject, ArenaNet has continued the trend of placing tall vantage points for players to observe from and griffon dive off of, for quick and fun mobility.
Two smaller yet important details that many games struggle with, but that Janthir maps do very right, are waypoint placement and content density. All too often in games, fast travel points are needlessly common or frustratingly sparse, and the availability of things to do or collect suffers the same. However, these maps have nearly perfected it, never leaving players bored or frustrated with a long hike.
Sorry Charr, you're no longer the biggest cats in Tyria; Warclaw gets updated for the open world
This expansion has brought with it what I genuinely consider to be the most undervalued update to any MMO, reinventing old content to keep it relevant. This is something that Guild Wars 2 has failed to do on several occasions. However, it's also something they tend to do better than anyone else.
After reaching these exotic new lands players will quickly unlock the Warclaw Mount mastery track. This brings a host of updates, improvements, and new abilities that give your old furry friend a new purpose in the form of a useful niche.
While previously relegated to being little more than a speed boost in WvW content, the Warclaw has found a new calling as a utility and combat mount in any location. It retains its move speed and leap distance, slower than the Raptor and shorter than the Jackal respectively, but can now work alongside your newfound spear skills.
You can use its Chain Pull ability to apply Defiance Break to highly mobile enemies or to interact with structures, like trees that need toppling. You can also use its Lance ability to fling a spear at enemies without being dismounted, similar to the Siege Turtle cannons or Skyscale fireball.
The last active ability is the aptly named "Sniff," which can be used to locate nearby treasure and act as a radar, displaying enemies on your minimap. There are also a handful of passive abilities such as increasing damage done while riding your Warclaw and increasing mount endurance regeneration. The most interesting of these is unlocking the ability for your cat to double jump.
Goodbye home instance, welcome Homestead
Another well-advertised and quickly unlocked feature in Guild Wars 2's Janthir Wilds is the Homestead. This is a new location for the Commander to maintain, decorate, and maybe retire to if Tyria ever calms down. Much like the Warclaw update this manages to take an under-utilized piece of content, the home instance, and give it a new purpose.
Players will unlock the Homestead naturally by playing through the Janthir questline as, in a nice touch, this new home is woven rather deeply into the story. You're even taught how to manage and decorate it through plot-relevant interactions. ArenaNet took their time to make sure this felt natural to obtain, as opposed to throwing menus at you and hoping you don't get overwhelmed.
As I mentioned before, the Homestead provides what amounts to an unrecognizable face-lift for the home instance system. This original instance was a personal home for the player located in their respective racial capital city. Though it may be harsh to say, the instance amounted to feeling a bit soulless and to those who truly cared about return on investment for gathering, a bit useless.
With this addition, the home instance has been given new life. All of your gatherable nodes will be transferred to your Homestead and placed in a layout that is largely more convenient than before, even for Asura. You'll also have ready access to fishing spots, resource processing, decoration crafting, and cooking with a relevant NPC for ingredients.
On top of all of this, players are also able to decorate their Homestead. Although this is not exactly a feature I'm particularly excited about, I appreciate the long-term value it brings to others. By giving players this form of creatively driven horizontal progression, ArenaNet has provided the instance a purpose that has near-infinite entertainment potential.
The newest addition to the GW2 armory, the Land Spear
After End of Dragons introduced the third series of Elite Specializations ArenaNet realized they were on the verge of a big problem, skill bloat. Thankfully they've had the foresight to prevent this before it started by finding alternative methods of expanding build potential.
In Secrets of the Obscure, each profession had one previously unusable weapon type added to their arsenal, like the Warrior with Staff or Mesmer with Rifle. The approach this time around was to instead create an entirely new weapon type, the Land Spear, which everyone can access.
I can't speak at length for every profession's Spear skills as I haven't had time to test them all, but at minimum, they all look to be quite fun to use. The majority of my play with the Spear has been on my main, a Revenant. The Spear abilities for this profession got off to a rough start in beta but were tweaked for release and now hit, quite frankly, ridiculously hard.
Other professions that have had great popularity with the Spear are Guardian and Warrior. In fact, in my experience, it's almost hard to find a Guardian that isn't running a Spear-focused build right now. In both meta events and world vs world you'll tend to see the ground covered in the elaborate pattern from their Spear 5 skill.
Some have had a different experience, unfortunately. Necromancers and Elementalists seem to be having the most trouble with the weapon, with many online claiming it needs to be adjusted. Some routine complaints have been a lack of proper niche and that its damage is outshined by other weapon types. Thankfully, these are very fixable problems, so ArenaNet will be able to get a few patches out soon.
Overall the weapon seems like it's quickly finding its place in the world of GW2 builds, albeit with some friction.
If you'd told me this a year ago, I'd not have believed you; Wing 8 is coming, it's real, it's real
For anyone not in the know of Guild Wars 2 raiding, Wing 8 has become something of a meme over the years or even a fairy tale. The first raid introduced to GW2, Wing 1, was released in 2015 during the Heart of Thorns expansion, and Wing 7 was released in 2019 during Path of Fire. After nearly half a decade of waiting, Guild Wars will get the fabled Wing 8.
Unfortunately, the raid wasn't able to be released alongside the launch of the expansion, but it will be introduced in an upcoming patch. Currently, Wing 8 is set to release in the first major expansion update alongside other features like new Homestead decorations and Janthir exclusive relics.
An interesting note about the new raid is that it will be addressing a long-standing complaint about the content type, that story is locked behind them. Players who want to enjoy the lore of these raids, but don't want to participate in them, have had to go outside the game to find this plot information. This created some obvious problems in a game that appeals heavily to more casual players who may not enjoy higher-end content.
Wing 8 will address this by having both a traditional 10-player mode and a new 50-player Convergence mode. The hope seems to be that the latter of these two will be easier for raid-averse players to get into as it will be more in the familiar style of a meta event. ArenaNet has stated that they're working to ensure the two styles of the raid don't feel too different in terms of story or mechanics.
Concluding thoughts on Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds
Janthir Wilds is, in my opinion, a reflection of the care ArenaNet has for this game and a culmination of lessons learned from past releases. Though GW2 is not perfect, every update expands on the last and creates a better and healthier game. It has the story focus of EoD, the large-scale meta content of SOTO, the impactful mount mechanics of PoF, and even a new raid as seen in HoT.
Having had an initial release full of content, devoid of major server issues, and without any game-breaking bugs, things are looking bright for Janthir Wilds. It's been a ton of fun to explore this new side of Tyria. The biggest concern I've had is that I won't be able to finish it all before the next expansion comes out.
I know I'll be spending a lot of time in the wilds of Janthir and I am looking forward to everything else we're going to see from Guild Wars in the future.
Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds
Platforms: Windows
Reviewed On: PC (Code provided by ArenaNet)
Release Date: August 20, 2024
Developer: ArenaNet
Publisher: NCSoft
