All of Guild Wars 2's nine-year-long evolving story is finally replayable as of today. When ArenaNet first started its Living World episodes, they were limited-time story quests that became inaccessible after they ended. The developers have long since changed this strategy, allowing you to return to later episodes whenever you like. The very first Living World season remained inaccessible though—until today. You can finally replay Guild Wars 2's first explosive, world-changing season finale all over again.
Battle For Lion's Arch has launched today, adding a public instance for up to 50 players to fight off Season 1's big baddie Scarlet Briar, a battle that originally destroyed the game's main player hub back when it happened. Now that battle will take place in an instance, not as a live event for hundreds of players in each server as it did back in the day.
"In addition to the story missions, the episode will also ship with a new strike mission, a challenging 10-player encounter against three of Scarlet's elite Assault Knights in the streets of the city," ArenaNet says. "New rewards in the episode include the Lion's Champion weapon set, the Lion Captain's cape and shoulder mantles, and the Breachmaker Micro Mk5 mace."
A new achievement for completing the entire Season 1 story will net you a teleportation item to go back and visit the original city prior to Scarlet's assault. Bit of nostalgia from me here, but I am pretty keen to see the original Lion's Arch on command. It's been rebuilt twice since the big battle of 2013—first with a ramshackle post-battle look and later with the sleek stone builds of today. The old pirate-y port town that it launched as features in other Season 1 missions, but the choice to visit any time will is a nice extra nod to memory.
Guild Wars 2 is still one of the best MMOs out there, and its newest expansion we said is "the strongest [campaign] Guild Wars 2 has delivered yet," in our End of Dragons review.
