Recent reviews by Zylarth

I've been playing GW2 on and off since prerelease, and it's always felt like my home game. Coming up on 4k hours played and I still feel like I've got bits to do (although that might be procrastination).

Let's focus on what got me hooked in the first place. It largely boils down to two things:
1. No sub fee. Back in the day I couldn't afford it, and I know I wouldn't have kept coming back to this game if it had one.
2. The sense of exploration and community.

GW2 has no sub fee. The closest thing to it are releases of "Living World" episodes, semi-regular patches that include new maps, story, cosmetics, and more. If you login even once while an episode is the most recent, you'll keep it for free forever. You only have to pay for them if you've taken a break from the game. (NB: The biggest bundle here gives you all current episodes upfront, and is fantastic value imo.)

As for immersion, GW2 captured me like few other games have. The dynamic event system makes maps feel alive and flowing. Because hitting a mob once is enough to earn drops, there's no animosity towards other players at events, fostering a friendly, cooperative atmosphere. It also makes meeting players (future friends!) so much easier, as groups of players will naturally form around event chains. In later maps, event chains can span the length and breadth of the map. "Meta-events" such as these form the bulk of the open world experience at endgame, and vary from killing enormous dragons, laying siege to a series of forts, or gathering coins to summon a giant cactus pinata.

I also want to mention exploration. I've touched on events, but equally important are the maps themselves. From the gentle rolling hills of starting zones, to dingy marshlands, vast deserts and towering cityscapes, each is full of interesting locations to discover. Hidden areas within each map make sure exploration can still feel fresh years later, and jumping puzzles exist across many maps to test your movement skill (which some people hate, but they're all optional).

Final point I want to touch on is the community. Thanks to the structure of the openworld gameplay, finding friends isn't hard, and the community is very friendly. New players will likely find veterans in starter zones giving helpful advice and items to make your experience better. If you need someone specific to reach out to, feel free to PM me ingame and I'll be happy to help you out. My IGN is Zylarth.2807 - if you can't reach me I'm likely busy or you're on the free-to-play version, which prevents whispering to non-friends to avoid bots abusing it.

I hope this review helped you to understand why I love this game, and hopefully I'll see you in Tyria! <3