Our interview has no spoilers, but ArenaNet has subtly been teasing the future within Season 2.

The Living World returns in less than two weeks for Guild Wars 2 with the Season 2.5 starting on November 4^th. Earlier this week, we had a chance to sit down with Bobby Stein, Lead Writer for the Living World, and Steven Waller, Associate Game Director of the Living World.

Both Bobby and Steven were excited to get back into the releases with the Halloween content patch earlier this week followed with Living World kicking back off in a couple of weeks. At the end of the first half of Season 2, players were able to witness the leaders of each race as well as the Pact commit to combating Mordremoth. The second half of Season 2 is being called the Road to War, as things build up to an end that players will never forget.

An ending that players will never forget may make you a little skeptical, but Steven really got behind his own words saying that this wasn’t something he would say lightly. He knows where the story is going and where it is going to end up, and both he and Bobby are really excited for when players will get to see it too.

Bobby stepped in to add that players are not going to have to wait long for some big reveals. Starting in Episode 5 (the patch that comes out November 4^th) there are a number of big things that are going to shake the players’ understanding of what is going on and how it is going to change their perception of “things”. Bobby, as well as Steven, didn’t want to reveal anything too spoiler for what is awaiting players, but they are excited for the moment later on when players can compare where things are compared to where they were when the story started.

While they were not wanting to go into anything that is to come, they were very talkative about what has already happened. Throughout Season 2 the team has focused on adding a little more depth to the world with idle conversations and little hints of what is to come.

This started all the way back during the Festival of the Four Winds, where the opening cinematic showed that a new ship was added to the Zephyrite fleet. Observant players might have noticed a glow coming out of doorway, before the door was slammed to prevent any secrets from getting revealed. Then in Episode 1 of the Living World, players joined Marjory and Kasmeer as they searched through the wreckage of that same Zephyrite ship, finding clues from the saboteur along the way. At one point they find an opening missing its door, and inside an open chest missing its contents. Then in the last instance of Episode 1, players might have noticed that the Master of Peace’s backpack had a familiar glow to it.

What was the glow? Why did the Master of Peace leave his people, who had just crash landed and were probably hurt, behind as he continued ahead? Where was he even going? These are some of the threads that Bobby and Steven hinted that Season 2.5 would pick up on, but that’s not all. For example, Marjory’s sister died in Episode 2, and while she was present for Episode 4, the World Summit kept her occupied enough that we never saw the impact of the loss of her sister. Episode 3 saw Braham and Rox go home and confront Eir and Rytlock improving their relationships a bit, then Episode 4 had the World Summit, but also saw Taimi exposed as a child, helpless as Inquest cornered her without her golem. How does she react going forward, but also how do the others react? Do things continue as they were or are they more concerned and overprotective of her?

Players saw a vision at the end of Episode 2, and while the Pale Tree didn’t really know what to make of it, she later gave the players another vision at the end of Episode 4. Why did the Pale Tree give the player this vision and what are players expected to do with it? The two visions are really about the interpretation, so Bobby and Steven said that they will never fully go into what the visions meant. They did say, however, that the second half of the season will give some more context to them. This goes back to the team adding depth by giving little hints and nods through NPC conversations as well as the environment itself. Bobby mentioned that at times they are very careful with the environment or the wording of what characters say. Players might not recognize these little hints immediately, but later on be able to look back and how things have connected across multiple episodes.

Bobby said that adding these little details is two-fold. It helps make the world deeper and richer, but also rewards players who go searching for them as they speculate on what everything could mean. They have watched as the community has come up with some speculation that has been pretty spot on as well as some amazing interpretations that they hadn’t expected. We asked if they were amazed by any of the players nailing their speculation with what was going to happen. Bobby and Steven both had a chuckle at this. Steven said that they have definitely been amazed by the accuracy of some of the speculation, but he also commented about how many players are out their creating these speculations. There are tons of speculation out there, but the key is knowing which one is the right one and that the fun is in players discovering that when the content comes out.

With all of these little details, we had to ask if there were any things that the team put in hoping that players wouldn’t discover them until after they played later episodes to gain more context. Bobby pointed out that there are a lot of things that go into a Living World, so not everything is going to be some big tie-in to things revealed later on. The things that do tie-in, they don’t necessarily want to hide, but at the same time they don’t want to make them so obvious that players know exactly where things are heading and don’t have a chance to really speculate. Steven added to this saying that it really is a range of things. Some things they want to bring to the forefront while others might be a little more reserved from the spotlight.

For example, Bobby pointed out the last instance of Episode 1 as Aerin confronted the Master of Peace. Players who played the Festival might notice some visual hooks brought into the end of Episode 1 if you look very carefully at where the Master of Peace is standing right before he leaves and the staging of the scene. He also pointed out that when the Master of Peace confronts Aerin about his behavior, their dialogue is very particular and that players who pick apart the words will derive some meaning from them.

With Season 2.5 it has also been mentioned that the stories will tie deep into the Guild Wars universe’s lore, including some nods back to the original Guild Wars game. We asked if this meant that players who had played the original game were going to get more out of the stories than solely Guild Wars 2 players. Bobby said that they are putting more stuff into the release in order to catch players up. This way all players will have all of the context when the content comes out. Players who had played the original Guild Wars will still have that cool realization when they see how it connects back to the original game, but it won’t diminish the story for players who hadn’t.

The last question we asked was in regards to the cadence of releases. Last year GW2 championed its two-week cadence, but this year the releases have been in small chunks separated by long breaks. We asked if this half of the season way going to be another set of four releases and if that is what the studio is aiming for. Meelad Sadat, Head of PR at ArenaNet, jumped in to answer our question. He compared it to a movie, where if you know that there is only 10 minutes left in the movie it can clue you in to how and when the plot points are going to end instead of keeping the suspense. Therefore he didn’t want to say how many episodes are going to be left in the season, but did say that starting with the Halloween episode they are back on their two-week cadence up through Wintersday on December 16^th before going on holiday break. As to what is going to happen after that, Meelad said that they will keep players informed of when there will or won’t be a patch, like how they announced the Halloween and start of each half of Season 2 well in advance.

For now, players can look forward to the continuation of Season 2 of the Living World in Guild Wars 2 on November 4^th as ArenaNet builds to an ending that we apparently are never going to forget.

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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