As part of its Extra Life 2022 efforts, the Guild Wars 2 team is going all out to celebrate one of the children helped through the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals – by literally putting her into the game for players to meet.
“As a part of our partnership with Children’s Miracle Network, we’re doing something extremely special this year: We’ll be adding a CMN Champion child, April Arellano, as a non-playable character to Guild Wars 2,” the studio explains. As a 15-month-old baby, April developed pneumonia and septic shock, which is almost always fatal in children, but doctors amputated her leg to save her, and now she’s 10 years old and “loves to sing, dance, perform in local theater, and play video games” – just like her in-game counterpart.
“April was born and raised just outside of Divinity’s Reach, in the small village of Garenhoff. She’s an ambitious and adept mesmer – and a serial meddler. We spent a lot of time working together with the real April and her parents to nail down aspects of her design, and we’re extremely proud of the result! April will be appearing in Guild Wars 2 as an important part of a special game update that will go live during our Extra Life 2022 Game Day event.”
According to the team, April’s “prosthetic will feature the most advanced jade technology,” and here’s the kicker: She’ll be voiced by none other than Jennifer Hale. Hale, of course, is very well-known to gamers for voicing absurd numbers of prominent characters, but Guild Wars 2 players in particular know her as the voice of the female Sylvari player character and Queen Jennah.
The studio isn’t saying much more until its Extra Life Game Day stream on November 4th, although ArenaNet’s Indigo Boock does tease “April’s little adventure”: “April’s character in-game is resilient, brave, and filled with charm – but she barely compares to her namesake. We can’t wait for you to witness our little mesmer’s shenanigans firsthand.” Same!
