Flameseeker Chronicles: Hands-on with Godspawn, Guild Wars 2’s latest release

Today marks the release of Godspawn, the first content patch of the Janthir Wilds expansion cycle for Guild Wars 2. While this patch comes with a bit of the usual story elements, the meat of it is largely group content. This includes both a new convergence, mechanically similar yet with a very different tone to the one we saw in Secrets of the Obscure, as well as the game’s first new raid in over five years.

There isn’t exactly a new map to explore this time around, but there is a new addition to the west of Janthir Syntri called Mount Balrior, which you will be visiting only inside instances. It serves triple duty: It is the setting for most of Godspawn’s story, its new raid, and the new convergence.

There will, no doubt, be two schools of thought on this one: Those who think this is a cheap and lazy reuse of assets (I’m sure the term “asset flip” will be thrown around liberally) and those who think it’s a smart and efficient use of resources. I must admit I am mainly in the latter camp. After all, previous patterns show that the majority of players will likely never set foot in the new raid, and I like that those players will still get to see the hard work the world design team put into the zone, and nobody will miss out on story beats just because they don’t like large-group, long-form content. Besides, I can’t imagine the logistical nightmare it must have been to make sure that the needs of the designers of all three content types were met in the same environment, even though there are some small tweaks for each version.

I won’t be issuing any spoilers here, but do be prepared for the story content itself to be pretty short. This shouldn’t really be a shock if you played the post-expansion patches for Secrets of the Obscure, but this one stings a little more since the “map” we get isn’t even freely explorable; it exists only in instances. That’s not to say that there are no interesting plot-relevant things happening, but if the stuff you log in for is mapping or meta events rather than listening to bear people talking and rock monsters taunting you, don’t set your expectations too high.

That said, one of my biggest complaints of the post-expansion patches for Guild Wars 2’s last expansion, Secrets of the Obscure, was that the later stories felt disconnected from the expansion’s original story. I am happy to report that isn’t the case this time, as Godspawn flows quite nicely from Janthir’s base story and teases things to come.

If you play a female Charr or Sylvari, you may notice a little something missing from this release’s story. That’s because, unfortunately, ArenaNet was unable to get those two voice actresses into the recording studio in time for the launch. The studio has promised that the voice lines for those characters (as well as Queen Jennah, who shares a VA with the Sylvari female) will be added in a future patch as soon as possible.

During the press preview, we weren’t treated to a preview of the Mount Balrior raid, which is being kept under wraps until launch day. However, we were told that the normal mode is designed to be on the easier side in order to entice players who might be intimidated by the difficulty of previous raids, thereby allowing for easier access by disorganized pickup groups with no comms.

Fear not, hardcore players; the challenge mode, coming in a future update, should be the punishing experience that high-end raiders crave. The team also confirmed that Mount Balrior’s rewards will be bought using its own currencies separate from that of existing raids, so long-time raiders won’t just be able to buy everything up on day one; they will actually have to do the content.

The other version of this map we saw was the new convergence. Functionally, it is very similar to the one that we got in Secrets of the Obscure, allowing for up to 50 players to join an instance for a world boss-like experience that requires players to split up into multiple groups to accomplish various goals to draw out a random end boss; it turns players into whisps when they go down rather than allowing them to respawn, and then you must bring essence to your NPC teammate (this time Waiting Sorrow) to resurrect your fallen comrades. Like the SOTO version, the convergence gateway will open a public instance every three hours, with the two convergence versions offset by an hour and a half from each other, and it can be opened by a private squad with an unstable rift motivation.

The best thing about the new convergence instance, though, is the storytelling. It follows much the same plot as the fight against the titans in the single-player story, but this time, you are playing through Stoic Alder’s retelling of the battle for the Kodan cubs. As you fight, Alder narrates what is going on, and the children interject. He embellishes a bit as he goes, which gives the instance some random factors. It’s adorable, and I love it. I’m told that if you wipe, the children protest that he’s telling the story wrong, and I’ve never wanted to fail an instance so badly before.

Godspawn also brought with it a new legendary spear, called Klobjarne. It appears to be made of animal horns, black feathers, and twisted branches, and when it is drawn, it begins to glow and a set of ghost spears appear at your back. Interestingly, once you unlock the spear, you actually unlock six unique spearhead styles for it, ranging from a more traditional pointed spear to a trident to a halberd.

Since every class in the game can use spear now, many of them quite effectively, a stat-selectable spear that is usable account-wide sounds really appealing. We previously had only one legendary spear in the game from the first generation, called Kamohoali’i Kotaki (apparently there is a rule that all legendary spears must be impossible for me to remember how to spell without looking it up). Unfortunately, that spear was incredibly ugly, so I was excited to see what the new spear would look like, and…

Well, it’s not as ugly as the zombie shark spine spear, but I really don’t care for it. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s really cool that it comes in multiple variants, but next to legendaries like Eternity, Astralaria, Exordium, or any of the gen 3 Aurene weapons, it just looks really bland.

To be honest, I would have been more excited about doing the legendary grind for the Falling Star spear that is found in the Wizard’s Vault (if you haven’t done that, by the way, it’s a fun little side quest and it rewards a nice ascended spear and glove for not much work). I’m sure Klobjarne is someone’s jam, and I don’t want to rain on your parade if you’re that someone, but it’s just a little disappointing.

Raiders will be pumped for today’s release after waiting five long years for new content to consume. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a hardcore convergence player, but I think people who enjoy this unique style of content should be pleased to add a second one to throw into the mix. The open-world story content on this release is a little weak, but I suppose you can’t have it all, and presumably the next couple of releases will give open world players more to do, given that the expansion roadmap has promised new maps for both the Q1 and Q2 releases in the new year.