The next chapter of the Guild Wars 2 Icebrood Saga: Champions is going live today, and man, does it ratchet up the stakes for what’s been happening throughout this episode. I had the opportunity to play through the story and the new dragon missions ahead of release. So let’s dive right into the non-spoiler intro to this chapter.
So, they teased the vision of the past where players get the chance to play as Braham and investigate the real meaning of Owl’s prophecy. Obviously, there is a lot that happens in this section and a ton to talk about, but that’s super spoiler territory, so we’ll stay away from that right now. However, I can speak a bit about the experience of that mission. I am happy that I got to keep all my skills while playing Braham; I admit it was a bit funny seeing him do Weaver Sword/Dagger skills, though. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this mission. However, if you tend to ignore dialogue while playing through these, you’ll probably be a bit bored because the meat of what’s going on isn’t the combat; it’s the dialogue. It’s a concise mission but very interesting.
Aside from that one vision, most of the chapter proceeds the same way the other chapters have. There are some conversations with Aurene and some of our other companions; then we go out and fight in some Dragon Response Missions. During those other companions show up, we all fight together, and learn new things about how we might deal with the new obvious threat of Jormag alongside the Primordus problem. I was glad to see that ArenaNet has continued to improve on these and make them a more enjoyable experience than when we got the first set of missions. I honestly enjoyed all of the new Dragon Response Missions.
I was also thrilled to see Rox come back with more information regarding the Olmakhan and them possibly joining forces with the rest of the charr Legions. It had been quite a while since either had been around, so it was good to see they hadn’t been forgotten. As we move forward with the global faction events, I’d be surprised if they aren’t one of the upcoming factions we’ll be working to help. It’s interesting to think about one of the main themes in the Personal Story was how all the races needed to come together to fight Zhaitan, but it was mostly just the playable races coming together to fight him. Now we seem to be building a much more inclusive coalition. Granted, we are fighting two dragons at once, but it’s still an interesting parallel.
The Tengu are also a good bit different and just generally more varied than I expected. Because I’ve only heard about them, I always figured they would all be uniformly abrasive when dealing with other races. However, the first one we met during this chapter is a messenger who had a lot to say and was far more forthcoming with information than I expected. I hope we’ll get more time with all the Tengu to learn more about what’s been going on with them since they completely closed themselves off from everyone. Their faction ability is a longbow, of course, and although it is good at controlling mobs, I wouldn’t say I liked using it very much. I didn’t like it because I kept having to refill arrows, which after spending a lot of time on my Ranger, just felt weird. Also, the Ranger Longbow skills are just far more fun to use. Other people might find the skills more interesting, but I just quickly stopped using that option at all.
In addition to all the crazy story stuff that happens and the new missions, this update also brings an excellent new decoration for your Guild Hall. Also, the Dragon Slayer weapons we’ve been working on can be upgraded to their final form as of this update. There’s a lot to check out, and I can’t wait to start hearing people’s reactions to this latest Guild Wars 2 story!
