It’s December 28. Wintersday is running. I’ve been in Tyria since it launched, and I’ve been thinking about what to write for this year-end piece since before the Bell Choirs started. I keep coming back to the same thing: 2016 was the year this community grew up a little.
That’s not an insult. It’s an acknowledgment that the relationship between a live game’s player base and its developers is an ongoing negotiation, and 2016 was the year that negotiation got real. We got disappointed. We said so. ArenaNet responded. Not always the way we wanted, not always as fast, but they responded. The game we’re playing in December 2016 is meaningfully better than the game we were playing in January - and the path between those two points is worth tracing.
Key Highlights
- Living World Season 3 delivered three episodes (Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, Bitterfrost Frontier) and ended the content drought that defined the year’s first half
- The Forsaken Thicket raid trilogy completed across Wings 1 - 3, establishing GW2’s first full raid arc
- Legendary weapon development resumed after the March suspension, with the new system now in production
- WvW Reward Tracks landed in April, the most impactful WvW improvement of the year
- Colin Johanson’s departure in March was the year’s emotional gut-punch - his eleven years shaped the game we play
- Aurene arrived in November and immediately became the best character the GW2 story has introduced in years
- The World Championship ($200k prize pool, Denial Esports back-to-back) was the high point of GW2 competitive play
What We Don’t Know Yet
- What Living World Season 3’s second half looks like - three episodes remain unannounced
- The full timeline for legendary weapon production under the new system
- ArenaNet’s competitive/esports plans for 2017
- Whether the WvW overhaul teased in January finally gets a 2017 delivery date
The Promise That Started It
On January 12, Colin Johanson published the 2016 State of the Game on the official ArenaNet blog that set the tone for everything that followed. The phrase was “breadth to depth.” The promise was that 2016 would be the year ArenaNet stopped experimenting with new systems for their own sake and started building on what worked. Quarterly updates. Consistent improvement of existing game modes. A Living World season that would begin delivering new story in the summer.
The community received it with cautious skepticism. The post-Heart of Thorns content gap was already hurting. A philosophical statement - however thoughtful - doesn’t fill an empty content calendar.
I read it then and I thought: let’s see. That was the right response. Because the year proved that the statement was either true or it wasn’t, and by December, we have enough data to evaluate it honestly.
March: The Year’s Low Point
March 2016 was the hardest month.
Colin Johanson left ArenaNet after eleven years. He was the public face of this game’s development more than anyone else. The living world storytelling model, the developer AMAs, the State of the Game transparency posts - those happened because of a culture he helped build. We wrote our tribute when he left, and I mean everything I said there. He cared about this game. It showed.
The same month brought the Generation 2 Legendary Weapon suspension. Six developers, redirected to Living World. Development of the Gen 2 legendary weapons - which Heart of Thorns had implied were coming - paused indefinitely. Players who had planned around those weapons, who had farmed gold for precursors that weren’t coming, felt genuinely let down. That was a fair reaction. The r/Guildwars2 threads that week were some of the most raw community writing the subreddit produced all year.
Here’s what I think now, in December, that I couldn’t say with confidence in March: those decisions - as painful as they were - may have been the right triage call. The Living World resources produced Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, and Bitterfrost Frontier. Three maps that have brought players back, generated new community engagement, and given the game’s story the momentum it lacked. Whether six developers making legendary weapons would have created more goodwill than the Living World team that made Season 3 is a genuine question, and the answer is not obvious.
The legendary weapons are also coming back. Under a new, streamlined system - confirmed in September, first weapon in production now. That “suspended” meant “changed” rather than “cancelled” matters.
March looked like the beginning of something bad. It turned out to be a hard but necessary course correction.
The Quiet Recovery
April through June were the months nobody wrote big retrospective pieces about. The Spring quarterly update landed April 19 with WvW Reward Tracks, a free L80 Boost, and meaningful terrain work on Desert Borderlands. Raid Wing 3 completed the Forsaken Thicket arc in June. Mike O’Brien’s Reddit AMA in March started a conversation about new leadership direction that the April update partially delivered on.
These months were quiet but they were building. The community that had been loudest about what wasn’t working - WvW players demanding reward tracks, raid players working through the second and third wing content, returning players finding something to do while waiting for Living World - was getting responses. Not always as loud as the ask, not always on the exact timeline requested, but the responses were real.
The Desert Borderlands improvement is a specific thing I want to highlight. The Change.org petition demanding Alpine Borderlands return had real signatures behind it. ArenaNet adjusted the Desert Borderlands map meaningfully in April. That’s not nothing. That’s a studio responding to sustained community pressure in the direction the community was asking for, even if not precisely in the form they requested.
The community has power when it speaks consistently, specifically, and without just venting. 2016’s middle months demonstrated that clearly.
July: The Turning Point
July 26. Out of the Shadows. Bloodstone Fen.
The content drought ended and the community’s temperature changed overnight. I wrote the full first-look piece when it dropped, and everything I said there holds up. Bloodstone Fen is the map that proved what Season 3 was going to be. The Counter Magic mastery, the vertical gliding combat, Eir’s memorial in the opening cutscene, Dragon’s Watch forming - it was the delivery that justified months of waiting.
The community’s reaction is worth documenting for the archive. Reddit threads titled “you’ve redeemed yourselves” appeared within hours. Players who had been on multi-month breaks logged back in and posted that they’d come back specifically for this. Map activity jumped visibly. The discourse changed from “is this game dying” to “where’s Episode 2.”
That’s the power of delivering something people actually wanted. The drought had been painful partly because it followed a game that people genuinely loved. The love was always there. It just needed something to respond to.
The Second Half
Ember Bay in September escalated the Elder Dragon stakes meaningfully. Primordus and Jormag awakening simultaneously - while the Commander is still processing the aftermath of one dragon defeat - is the kind of narrative escalation that makes a long-running story feel like it’s building toward something. The Mursaat’s return through Lazarus the Dire was the lore event of the year for longtime franchise players.
The World Championship the weekend before gave competitive players their biggest stage. Denial Esports’ back-to-back title is a genuine achievement. The structural questions around GW2 esports sustainability are real, but the event itself delivered. Lord Helseth said what he said and then went and won the whole thing. That’s a story.
Bitterfrost Frontier in November brought Aurene. If you follow the community at all, you know what that means. The response to her introduction was the year’s most unanimous positive reaction - players across every segment of the player base found something to love in that character. Braham’s difficult arc is dividing the community in interesting ways. The story is doing real things.
What 2016 Actually Built
Looking at the year in full, here’s what I think 2016 actually accomplished:
A sustainable content delivery model. Living World Season 3 is proving that episodic story delivery can work if the cadence is real. Three episodes in three quarters. If Season 3 finishes its remaining episodes on a similar pace, ArenaNet will have demonstrated that they can run this indefinitely.
A stronger story. Dragon’s Watch as a cast is more compelling than Destiny’s Edge was at the same point in its development. Aurene’s introduction is the most promising single story beat in the game’s history. Braham’s arc is difficult in ways that feel deliberate rather than accidental.
Real WvW progress. Reward Tracks changed the economic calculus for every WvW player. Alpine Borderlands rotation is still coming. The WvW overhaul teased in January is still outstanding - that’s the lingering frustration - but the mode got real attention this year.
The raid community matured. The Forsaken Thicket trilogy is complete. The training guild ecosystem - player-organized groups that bring newcomers into raid content - developed into something genuinely impressive. The raid accessibility debate isn’t resolved, but the community built structures to work within it.
Legendary weapons course-corrected. The suspension was painful. The return is real. Whether the new system delivers the weapons that were promised is 2017’s job to answer.
What 2017 Needs to Be
The foundation 2016 laid is solid. Here’s what the next year needs to deliver to build on it rather than squander it.
Living World Season 3 needs to finish strong. Three episodes left. The story has built toward something real - two awakening Elder Dragons, Aurene’s developing bond with the Commander, Braham’s grief arc heading somewhere. The payoff has to land. ArenaNet has earned some trust with how Season 3 has been executed; that trust needs its second half.
The WvW overhaul needs to actually happen. It was teased in January 2016. We’re sitting in December and it hasn’t materialized in the form that was promised. WvW players have been patient. That patience has a limit that 2017 cannot afford to breach.
Legendary weapons need to deliver. The first weapon under the new system is in production. More need to follow on a visible timeline. The suspension hurt; the resumption matters less than the pace of what follows.
Esports needs clarity. Whether ArenaNet and ESL extend the partnership, or the competitive scene finds a different organizational structure, the community needs to know what competitive GW2 looks like in 2017 before the year gets too deep.
One more thing, and I mean it: thank you. To every player who stuck around through the first half of 2016 when the content calendar was thin and the community’s patience was being tested. To every person who wrote constructive feedback in forum posts instead of just venting. To the raid training guilds that built access structures the game didn’t provide. To the WvW commanders who kept tagging up when the map wasn’t what they wanted. To every guildie who logged in anyway.
The game got better because the community stayed. That’s not sentiment - it’s an accurate description of how live games work.
See you in Tyria in 2017.