Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns has just launched and is now available for download to all players who purchased the expansion ahead of its release today.
The expansion is live and available at digital and retail stores across North America and Europe. It comes less than three months after ArenaNet announced that the core Guild Wars 2 game is available to play for free, a move that has significantly grown the player community. ArenaNet says that with the move, the game has grown to more than 7 million player accounts globally.
“This has been a memorable year for ArenaNet and our Guild Wars 2 player community,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder and president of ArenaNet. “We energized our fans in January with the announcement of Heart of Thorns as the first expansion to Guild Wars 2, and we’ve seen steady growth in our player base ever since. Our community is widely recognized as one of the best and friendliest in MMOs – many of our veteran players organized in starter zones to welcome new players the weekend we made the core Guild Wars 2 game free. We’re eager to see how our fast growing community continues to flourish, and we hope they’re eager to embrace where their Guild Wars 2 journey takes them next in Heart of Thorns.”
Heart of Thorns extends the core game experience for the growing community with a range of new content and features, including a new system called Masteries that redefines how endgame character progression works. Additionally, the expansion adds Guild Halls where groups of players can claim and customize a piece of the game world, setting the stage for the first-ever raids coming to the MMO.
Players interested in story see the next chapter in their Personal Story saga, where armies in Tyria led by players go deep into the heart of the Maguuma jungle to take on an elder dragon. In addition to new game modes and improvements that touch upon every aspect of Guild Wars 2, players can check out an all-new profession called the Revenant along with elite specializations that add a variety of new weapons and skills to every existing profession. There's also new competitive game content in a new PvP mode called Stronghold and a new Desert Borderlands map for World vs. World mode.
Players who purchase the expansion will gain access to major content updates free of charge. Further details about the game can be found at the official site.
