Legendary relics! No, ArenaNet is not calling you old; it’s heralding the new craftable coming in its third big chunk of the Secrets of the Obscure arc in Guild Wars 2.
“Our next major release for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure isn’t far away, and when it arrives you’ll be able to craft a legendary relic. Relics are a new category of equipment that we added with the expansion’s launch in August of 2023,” the studio says. “Upon acquisition, legendary relics can be equipped by all characters on an account simultaneously, allowing players to freely swap between relic effects.”
Today’s dev blog expounds on the system’s impact and specifically explains how players who have already crafted legendary runes will be compensated as it’s changed its mind on what to do: “[W]e’re happy to announce that when legendary relics become available, any player who has already crafted at least one legendary rune will be granted a legendary relic for free. In other words, you’ll get 100% of legendary relic progress as a bonus for having already crafted a rune.”
The team is also flashing a little warning beacon about legendary relics in future expansions and how effects are unlocked.
“When we made an update in 2019 to reduce confusion in the way attribute-selectable gear worked, we decided to allow existing legendary equipment to retain access to all attribute combination selections regardless of expansion ownership to honor existing functionality. We will continue to do this for previously existing types of legendary equipment. However, from a rewards, economy, and experience-design standpoint, we think it makes sense to ask players to actually engage with new content in order to make use of its new combat offerings. So, for relics only—and starting with the fifth expansion—new relic effects will need to be unlocked within each expansion in order to be accessible via legendary relics.”
We don’t have a hard date for the launch, but based on the roadmap, we’re still assuming Februaryish until told otherwise. ArenaNet does say it’ll “be back in a few weeks with more information” on the patch.
