Guild Wars 2 Preview

ArenaNet’s newly announced Guild Wars sequel has received the preview treatment from the folks at Eurogamer. Plenty of developer commentary can be found within, too. A snippet:

Guild Wars 2 is attempting to show us a lot that we haven’t see before, but as the trailer demonstrates, Tyria looks rather familiar – we’ve seen a lot of the trailer’s environments in Guild Wars 1. “Whilst we’re indeed trying to improve the visual quality of the game, we do plan on maintaining the sensibility that made the first game what it was,” says art director Daniel Dociu.

“What differentiates Guild Wars 2 is the more stylised approach to a lot of the aspects of the texture work, grander spaces, more epic environments – all these enhancements go hand-in-hand with advancements on the engine front, so we are trying to parallel the advancements on the tech front with steps forward artistically… But there will be continuity, definitely,” Dociu says.

There are significant new areas, of course: most excitingly, the prospect of exploring an underwater continent. Flannum claims that there will be “a lot” of underwater exploration, and it will be possible for all races and players. “It’s going to be really easy and accessible for players to go underwater. In a lot of other games you see the underwater environment as this really hostile environment where you have to worry about running out of air constantly and you’re always on the verge of dying, and that tends to make the area less fun. We really want to emphasise the fun, the differences, the change of pace of going underwater, to encourage that exploration.”