Rate top gamesGuild Wars 2
About
Guild Wars 2's open world is all about discovery and exploration. Check your content guide for suggestions when you set out on your adventures, consult your compass to find interesting landmarks…or just pick your favorite direction to travel in and let adventure find you. Tyria is full of characters with their own stories and goals, and you'll be rewarded for helping them out—or thwarting their plans—by completing renown hearts and dynamic events. Read our new player guide for more tips!
When you meet other players in the open world, you don't need to join their party to lend a helping hand, investigate a secret jumping puzzle, or team up against a deadly world boss. Don't grind; play the way you want to play! Whether you're reviving defeated players, rescuing soldiers from a Risen onslaught, or gathering herbs, you'll earn experience points.
Arm your character with an arsenal of new weapons as you play. Every profession wields them differently, and each type has its own playstyle, which you can refine and customize by unlocking and equipping hundreds of skills and traits. If you want to jump straight into structured PvP, go for it—every player competes at the same level, with access to the max-level gear and build options you need to make your mark.
If you love fashion, express yourself with the perfect character design! When you equip new weapons and armor, you'll unlock their skins in your wardrobe. Make them truly yours with thousands of possible combinations and a massive selection of collectible dyes.
Upgrade your free account with a Guild Wars 2 expansion and get access to log-in rewards, additional character and bag slots, expanded chat features, and more. Visit the Black Lion Trading Company in the game and use your Steam Wallet to upgrade.
Expansions and Living World seasons feature unique rewards and new Masteries to expand your character's abilities. Unlock and upgrade your glider in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, befriend a stable of mounts with powerful movement skills in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, and learn to fish and pilot a skiff in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Each expansion grants access to nine elite specializations that unlock new weapon choices, skills, and abilities for your profession. You'll also be able to select the revenant profession at character creation and channel legendary heroes and villains from Tyria's history.
Living World seasons continue the Guild Wars 2 story between expansions and must be purchased separately through your Story Journal or in Gem Store bundles. Play Living World episodes to unlock new explorable zones, rewards, and Masteries.
*Living World episodes become playable at level 80. Players may need to relaunch the game for the upgrade to take effect.
**Please note that existing Guild Wars 2 player accounts cannot be accessed via Steam
When you meet other players in the open world, you don't need to join their party to lend a helping hand, investigate a secret jumping puzzle, or team up against a deadly world boss. Don't grind; play the way you want to play! Whether you're reviving defeated players, rescuing soldiers from a Risen onslaught, or gathering herbs, you'll earn experience points.
Arm your character with an arsenal of new weapons as you play. Every profession wields them differently, and each type has its own playstyle, which you can refine and customize by unlocking and equipping hundreds of skills and traits. If you want to jump straight into structured PvP, go for it—every player competes at the same level, with access to the max-level gear and build options you need to make your mark.
If you love fashion, express yourself with the perfect character design! When you equip new weapons and armor, you'll unlock their skins in your wardrobe. Make them truly yours with thousands of possible combinations and a massive selection of collectible dyes.
Upgrade your free account with a Guild Wars 2 expansion and get access to log-in rewards, additional character and bag slots, expanded chat features, and more. Visit the Black Lion Trading Company in the game and use your Steam Wallet to upgrade.
Expansions and Living World seasons feature unique rewards and new Masteries to expand your character's abilities. Unlock and upgrade your glider in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, befriend a stable of mounts with powerful movement skills in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, and learn to fish and pilot a skiff in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Each expansion grants access to nine elite specializations that unlock new weapon choices, skills, and abilities for your profession. You'll also be able to select the revenant profession at character creation and channel legendary heroes and villains from Tyria's history.
Living World seasons continue the Guild Wars 2 story between expansions and must be purchased separately through your Story Journal or in Gem Store bundles. Play Living World episodes to unlock new explorable zones, rewards, and Masteries.
*Living World episodes become playable at level 80. Players may need to relaunch the game for the upgrade to take effect.
**Please note that existing Guild Wars 2 player accounts cannot be accessed via Steam
System requirements for PC
Minimum:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel® Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz Core i3 AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GTS / ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 70 GB available space
Recommended:
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
System requirements for macOS
Last Modified: Nov 20, 2024
Where to buy
Steam
Top contributors
Guild Wars 2 reviews and comments
When Guild Wars 2 released back in 2012, the MMO landscape was dominated by World of Warcraft. WoW set the status quo for MMO's: grind (and grind some more) for levels and better gear score, subscribe for $10 a month, play an unremarkable story, get loads of questionably useful skills and talents, ruin your character by applying skillpoints incorrectly, and pay for yearly expacs. Power creep was rampant in the genre, and everything seemed to develop into "lifestyle games" that you couldn't take a break from without falling behind the rest of the players who had more time to play than you.
Guild Wars 2 defied (and still does defy) these seemingly set in stone genre conventions. It had a "pay once" model without any subscription fees (it is now free-to-play). It had an involved, fully voiced story tailored to your character. It had a continuing story told in seasons of Living World content. It had a focused, directed skill and trait system that left you with 10 skills and three specializations. It had an intelligent scaled leveling system that reduced your level depending on the zone, allowing you to play with lower level players. It had content that was worth doing at any level. It had massive 100+ person world bosses. It had balanced PvP that put all players on an even playing field by giving them access to all the same skills and equipment. It had a marginal (5%) gap between easily acquired Exotic Gear and more difficult to acquire Ascended Gear (which is STILL the best gear in the game 8 years later). You could fully change your character's build at any time. It had massive hundred person World vs World Vs World battles.
Guild War 2 was a better game for lowering the gap between casual players and hardcore "lifestyle" players. It was a better game because it was fun first, and grindy second. You played because it was fun, not because you were constantly trying to keep up with your competition.
And the game only got better. Heart of Thorns added in new Elite Specializations that gave each class access to a new weapon type and dramatically changed its playstyle. Guardians got bows, Necromancers got greatswords, and more. They also added raids, which, if it weren't for some pretentious groups in the community, would be very fun to drop into. The new maps they added were hit or miss, but they required a level of coordination between as many as 150 players that is still a sight to behold to this day.
Path of Fire added what may be the best implementation of mounts ever seen in an MMO. You transition from walking to mounts seamlessly, and each mount has a specific mechanical purpose used for traversing the world in a new way. Group content only got tighter and more enjoyable, however it required significantly less coordination than Heart of Thorns maps.
I don't expect GW2 to be genre defining, but I wish it were. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still a positive direction for MMO's. It takes what made the genre great and embraces it, while minimizing the impact of what makes the genre inaccessible and tedious.
Guild Wars 2 defied (and still does defy) these seemingly set in stone genre conventions. It had a "pay once" model without any subscription fees (it is now free-to-play). It had an involved, fully voiced story tailored to your character. It had a continuing story told in seasons of Living World content. It had a focused, directed skill and trait system that left you with 10 skills and three specializations. It had an intelligent scaled leveling system that reduced your level depending on the zone, allowing you to play with lower level players. It had content that was worth doing at any level. It had massive 100+ person world bosses. It had balanced PvP that put all players on an even playing field by giving them access to all the same skills and equipment. It had a marginal (5%) gap between easily acquired Exotic Gear and more difficult to acquire Ascended Gear (which is STILL the best gear in the game 8 years later). You could fully change your character's build at any time. It had massive hundred person World vs World Vs World battles.
Guild War 2 was a better game for lowering the gap between casual players and hardcore "lifestyle" players. It was a better game because it was fun first, and grindy second. You played because it was fun, not because you were constantly trying to keep up with your competition.
And the game only got better. Heart of Thorns added in new Elite Specializations that gave each class access to a new weapon type and dramatically changed its playstyle. Guardians got bows, Necromancers got greatswords, and more. They also added raids, which, if it weren't for some pretentious groups in the community, would be very fun to drop into. The new maps they added were hit or miss, but they required a level of coordination between as many as 150 players that is still a sight to behold to this day.
Path of Fire added what may be the best implementation of mounts ever seen in an MMO. You transition from walking to mounts seamlessly, and each mount has a specific mechanical purpose used for traversing the world in a new way. Group content only got tighter and more enjoyable, however it required significantly less coordination than Heart of Thorns maps.
I don't expect GW2 to be genre defining, but I wish it were. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still a positive direction for MMO's. It takes what made the genre great and embraces it, while minimizing the impact of what makes the genre inaccessible and tedious.