We caught up with game designer Matt Wuerffel in the beautiful Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns booth at PAX East to learn more about the changes the expansions brings and the new PvP game mode.
"Heart of Thorns is our look at the entire game, all of the systems in the game and saying: 'let's take a step forward, let's integrate everything together and let's really lay the foundation for where Guild Wars 2 as a game is going'," says Wuerffel.
"We've got new systems for the PvE progression, the mastery system, which is our answer to a contextual progression system that let's us release new areas and new content with custom tailor made abilities that players can use and invest in to explore and move around in those environments and take on those foes," continues Wuerffel.
"We've got a new profession the Revenant. We're adding specialisations. We're adding Guild Halls. And then we're doing a lot of stuff for PvP - the Stronghold demo is going on here [at PAX East]. We're also adding things to World vs. World. So it's touching every major system and major component of the game, taking all the lessons we have learned so far, and saying: 'Hey, how do we make this better? How do we push the game even further?' To be in a good place moving forward for where GW2 is going to go."
There's currently no release date for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, but stay tuned for updates on Gamereactor.