Guild Wars 2

Steam Reviews

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• Recommended Posted July 20, 2025 on Steam Great MMO. Know what expansions you need to save yourself some money. Core free game is fast to level through, taking me roughly 3 days to hit max level. More casual players could easily still do it over the course of a week. Unfortunately there is a lot of prep work you need to do once you hit 80 before you can really start doing what you want, but once you get that out of the way the game really does open up unlike any other MMO with tons of options to do. My opinion on expansions and their worth: 1. Heart of Thorns - Arguably the best maps and group content but otherwise only needed if the elite spec you want to play is locked behind it. 2. Path of Fire. - Required for the mounts and honestly unlocking them is really fun. 3. End of Dragons - If you skip Heart of Thorns then this is a must buy for the glider. You dont get the masteries but you don't need them. Jade bot is a nice extra. If you're tight on money choose this or Heart of Thorns depending on which elite specs you want access to. 4. Secrets of the Obscure - Potentially needed if the build you want to play requires the extra weapon unlocks. Great because it gives you access to a faster way to get the most important mount in the Skyscale. If you're okay with it taking way longer to get Skyscale and you don't need the extra weapon then skip. 5. Janthir Wilds - The spear is a fantastic weapon on most specs. Also gives you access to player housing if that is important to you. Otherwise very skip-able.
• Recommended Posted May 24, 2026 on Steam If you play this game, you need to know that the default settings are genuinely terrible. Change these right away to save your sanity: ⠀ • [b]Turn on "Show All Usable Object Names":[/b] By default, the game hides item names. Turning this on lets you see hidden or hard to see quest items, collection coins, and chests glowing with text from far away. ⠀ • [b]Change Ground Targeting to "Fast with Range Indicator", or "Instant":[/b] This cuts out the clunky double-clicking for ground spells and makes combat feel incredibly fluid. ⠀ • [b]Fusing your Inventory:[/b] Open your inventory, click the gear icon, and select "Hide Bags." This turns your inventory into one continuous, clean block instead of a disjointed mess of individual grids. ⠀ [b]You can also turn the game into a First or Third-Person Shooter:[/b] Hit Escape -> Options -> Keybinds, and set a key for “Toggle Action Camera.” Combine this with disabling camera shake and enabling first-person zoom, and the game completely changes how it plays. ⠀ [i]Note on camera view:[/i] Third-person plays significantly better than first-person here. Unlike games like ESO, GW2 doesn’t actually show your weapon or hands on-screen when you use skills in first-person, which can feel a bit odd, like my deadeye sniper is sneezing out sniper shots. Stick to third-person action camera for the best combat experience. ⠀ There are a ton more UI optimizations to make, but these developers really need to update their defaults. Strongly recommend the game, just fix the settings first! ⠀ --- ⠀ [b]Some Bonus Gameplay Tips:[/b] ⠀ • [b]Hunt Yellow Mobs for 4x XP:[/b] Enemies / Neutral NPCs not killed for a long time give massive bonus XP. Turning on "Show ALL NPCs" reveals neutral yellow names; players often skip these, leaving them alive long enough to give 2k to 4k+ bonus XP chunks, zone depending. (Stack food, utility sharpening stones, and boosters to make this method incredible). ⠀ • [b]Use Combo Fields for Free Effects:[/b] If a skill says "Combo Field," drop it down, then use a "Combo Finisher" inside it—like a Daredevil flipping through a smoke field to gain instant stealth for an out-of-stealth knockdown hit.
• Recommended Posted November 19, 2025 on Steam My experience so far in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars can be overwhelming once you hit level 80 but if you pick a couple of goals to work towards its actually quite refreshing. There is no gear treadmill in Guild Wars which effectively allows players the freedom of doing whatever activity they actually enjoy doing without pressure to "gear up". I felt a FOMO a total of ZERO times so far in the X hours I've played. There is no RUSH to end game like other certain games in the same genre. The end game is pick your poison. One of the biggest draws to the game for me is the open world in particular - meta events. These events attract a large amount of players all committed towards a common goal, usually a boss. The open world content is top shelf to say the least which attributes to the game feeling very much "alive". That's just one of the many elements of Guild Wars 2 that players can participate in, there are also fractals ( mini dungeons ), Raids, Strikes, PVP, World V World, World Bosses, Mount collection, Achievment hunting and legendary gear crafting to name a few. I probably missed some stuff. Some things to note: - This is not a theme park MMORPG, meaning all the old expansions and zones are still active and have players running around doing all sorts of things. Old content = still relevant. - If you don't like the story then getting through the MSQ can be a drag. With unskippable dialogue it can be an absolute ball drag at times. - You can play for free but also remember as F2P you are gated out of a tremendous amount of content which they have strategically placed behind, imo, fair pay walls. Keep a look out for sales. - Is Guild Wars Pay to Win? No, but it is pay for convenience, as you can buy gold directly from the cash shop. - The GW2 wiki is your friend. - There is no subscription fee. - Get yourself a good mount as one of your first priorities ( I got Skyscale ). It is a necesary quality of life improvement that will impact your whole playing experience. I'm constantly saying to myself " Thank *&^% I've got Skyscale." Thanks for reading,
• Recommended Posted October 24, 2025 on Steam If you're going to play Guild Wars 2, I would recommend logging in via an ArenaNet account instead of the Steam login. Change the game properties under Launch to "-provider Portal" without the quotes and using an uppercase P. You get (according to the web) full access to exclusive bundles, sales, and payment options (e.g., gem cards from retailers like Amazon). Cheaper for devs (no 30% Steam cut). Cheaper in-game purchases for you, I believe. Also, support will go through to the official team rather than being mixed in with Steam who have no control over what happens inside of the game. Now about the game itself, I feel that the game is very premium for what you are getting. Mixed tab target/action combat, not as strict as World of Warcraft. The base game is free with no subscription but if you hit level 10 and want to keep your mount you will have to spend 30 USD for the first 2 expansions (they are bundled as a package). What you are getting for that price is about 140 hours of content including the base game (if you are grinding and rushing through the story, skipping dialogue). I have calculated this by using the web. Thanks for reading, enjoy your stay.
• Recommended Posted November 29, 2025 on Steam Having logged over 3000 hours on my main (non-steam) account thus far I would have to say that Guild Wars has been a boon and a curse over the past 10+ years. Here is the recap: First off I was delighted when it got released on Steam as well - a second wind for the game and a new playerbase able to visit tyria (& experience the wonderful soundtrack - kudos to the composers!) Investment 1: From a money perspective -> well-spent. No subscription. Buy the base game+add-ons and you get hundreds of hours of content. Want to take a break? No problem, return in a few months and you will see many improvements (without paying a dime during the time you were gone - devs are doing a good job in that regard) The map design has overall always been very nice and I really appreciate the paint-brush aesthetics utilized in all parts of the game. The concepts and artwork in general is beautiful (look it up online) As with many MMORPGS, it distracts you just fine from the everyday stressors of life. Maybe too much at times. Or it stresses you in other ways. If I am tired of chores in real life, Guild Wars presents me with new chores and new to do lists... makes you finish collections, achievements of all kinds & play the story chapters more often than you want to (depending on the expansion, even playing it once could be considered one too many). At least the underlying lore was always interesting. The end-game. Well... instead of buying new clothes in real life, you hunt for skins in the game. 'Fashion Wars'. Also, instead of going to the convenience store you play 'Convenience Wars' and pay hundreds of gold for things just to have them easily available on all the other characters as well (even if you hardly play them, you start to 'need it, just in case..'). So you keep grinding... for things you wanted yesterday, or things you might want to want at some point... which brings me to: Investment 2: From a time-perspective -> your results may vary. I know of guys who study the (trading) market and have excel sheets - this is where I draw the line. I already have an office job. 9/10 escape reality wars, 9/10 fashion wars, 8/10 sunk cost fallacy wars, 5/10 story wars, 10/10 soundtrack wars Averaging at 8.2 - so. yeah. recommended
• Recommended Posted June 10, 2025 on Steam Ignore the Steam counter, I have over 6k hours in GW2 on the standalone client: the content I do is 95% PvE, mostly endgame content like Fractals, Raids, Strikes and their CMs. Have all Legendary sets, Runes/ Sigils, accessories, relics crafted. Positives: • The combat is more akin to an Action RPG than a clunky MMO and I enjoy that a lot. • Some of the classes like Firebrand, Tempest, Scrapper and Deadeye are very unique and well designed, both from a gameplay perspective and a thematic one. • The base game soundtrack is fantastic, which is to be expected from Jeremy Soule. HoT and PoF kinda continued that streak under Maclaine Diemer and Lena Raine but it has been getting progressively worse since. Mixed: • The world/ map designs up to Living Season 4 are fantastic for the most part. • While GW2 isn't a sub-MMO and they have to turn a profit somehow I suppose, that doesn't make the monetization system any less predatory: in-game premium currency, lootboxes and lootbox exclusive cosmetics, FOMO out of control, QoLs are paywalled and they really stretch the meaning of what a QoL is to include Builds and Templates (loadouts), they skimp out on meaningful rewards HARD because they obviously want you to swipe your credit card for Gold. • Recently Anet not only discontinued expansions like Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire and End of Dragons but they turned Living World seasons (previously small FREE content drops/ patches) into paid "expansions" - THAT is what Secrets of the Obscure and Janthir Wilds are. And it isn't even the most problematic part, that would be the Early Access form they come in - you have to wait for an entire year to get the full package. • The open world "gameplay" boils down to following a tag alongside 49 other people like an actual bot, repeating the same thing over and over again all while your character and your individual actions get lost in a sea of flashy particles, to get like 1 or 2 gold out of it IF you are lucky and it is a proper event. Negatives: • Very poorly written stories and dialogues. You can skip it in base, living worlds and expansions take that option away from you. • Every single Meta (basically world events/ bosses) and activities that prove to be profitable get nerfed hard. That's because in-game you can convert gold into premium currency, they want you spending actual money for it. It has also deeply influenced their design philosophy with the newer endgame content, everything is an HP sponge that takes ages to kill. • Challenging achievements and otherwise very important in-game feats either don't reward you at all or in a very small and underwhelming way. • Endgame content lacks automated tools or matchmaking, only manual LFG is available and the community not only doesn't facilitate new players coming into the endgame but heavily gates them through killproof and Title requirements - so it ends up as content that is played by only a fraction of the playerbase, which leads to the devs abandoning it or trying to re-iterate on it, only for its new form to fail again because the same players get in there and start gatekeeping again. • Drying playerbase. Not just negative but straight up disgusting: • ArenaNet: some of the pettiest developers in gaming. Horribly mismanaging an MMO that started really strong and was on track to become the next big thing, really into censoring criticism and negative opinions - the official forums are infamous for it. On Steam, their PR agents/ fanboys do it for them, • The "friendly community" - a charade through and through, it is low effort "help" towards new players - the "help" being literally just answering questions in map chat and being fake positive. When you get to the instanced content (especially "endgame") or if you ask for help with a difficult task or achievement, that is when their real colors pop up. • A minsinformation zerg that follows the game wherever it goes because they are heavily invested into GW2 through multiple alts, absurd amounts of money spent on MTX (3k+), engaging in illegal activities like RMT and so on. The yes-men and sycophants that plague the forums and other communities related to Guild Wars 2, you can find them on Steam Discussions as well. The following is the most important bit for newcomers, read this if nothing else: GW2 is bordering maintenance mode. Recycled content galore, most patches are literally 90% Gem store skins and 10% unnecessary balance changes to justify the "patch", the term polish doesn't even exist in Anet's vocabulary anymore. I'll be extremely surprised if there will be another "expansion" after whatever is going to follow up Janthir Wilds comes out. As a new player, keep in mind that you are walking into an MMO that is nearing the end of the line. But what about the old content, is it worth playing? I would say yes, everything released between base game and Living World 4 is genuinely fun content. "Why do you have 5k hours in a game you criticize so much?!" - I've seen that used against other reviews but the amount of hours only adds credibility to the criticism. Secondly, most of that playtime is base game + HoT + PoF era. Towards the end of Living Season 4 (PoF era), ArenaNet went really hard on paywalls and MTX - since then, the only things that have kept me coming back are my weekly raid clears/ trainings, occasional Fractal CMs and achievements. Sunk-cost fallacy is also a thing. For new players, I will recommend GW2 under two conditions and for the amazing content that is HoT-LS4: 1. If you have friends to play it with or you have no trouble making new friends, so you actually have a way of dealing with the drying playerbase, especially in older maps and content, 2. Those that are fine with starting out an MMO that is nearing maintenance mode. 🔳 Broken 🔳 Shovelware 🔳 Awful 🔳 Bad 🔳 Mid 🔳 Okay ☑️ Good 🔳 Great 🔳 Excellent