Twelve months ago, Guild Wars 2 looked like a game that might be entering its final chapter. Today, it’s a game that has a story arc running, a new content format launching, and a community that — despite everything — is still here.
That’s the story of 2019. Not a triumphant one. Not a clean one. But an honest one, and a better one than February would have predicted.
We’ve been covering this game at Exitializ since 2012. We don’t sugarcoat the hard years, and 2019 was a hard year. It also had highs that didn’t get enough credit when they happened, buried as they were under successive waves of community discourse. Let’s do the year justice.
The 2019 Timeline
| Month | Event |
|---|---|
| February | ArenaNet announces layoffs — 143 employees let go, two unannounced projects canceled |
| March | Warclaw launches — first WvW-exclusive mount in GW2 history |
| May | ”War Eternal” releases — Living World Season 4 closes; Skyscale mount introduced |
| August/September | PAX West reveal — The Icebrood Saga announced; HoT made free with PoF; Strike Missions teased |
| October | Build and Equipment Templates launch; Mike O’Brien announces his departure from ArenaNet |
| November | Icebrood Saga Episode 1, “Whisper in the Dark,” releases — Far Shiverpeaks and Bjora Marches open |
| December | Strike Missions added; Icebrood Saga is active and running |
February: The Hit That Didn’t Kill It
We wrote about the layoffs in February when they happened and said everything we had to say about the human cost. We still mean all of it.
Looking back from December, here’s what else is true: the restructure happened, and the game kept going. “War Eternal” shipped in May. The PAX announcement happened in August. “Whisper in the Dark” shipped in November. By any output measure, the post-restructure ArenaNet delivered what a pre-restructure ArenaNet would have delivered.
That’s remarkable. Studios that absorb 30% headcount reductions mid-development cycle usually show the damage in the product. Guild Wars 2 in 2019 didn’t. Whatever the remaining team did to absorb the hit and keep moving — that deserves acknowledgment.
It also raises the uncomfortable possibility that the restructure was, for the game if not for the individuals, a clarifying event. A studio with a single product to focus on and a smaller team to coordinate around it found a rhythm. We’d rather the 143 people still had their jobs. We’d also rather acknowledge what the remaining team actually accomplished.
May: Season 4 Sticks the Landing
“War Eternal” was the best Living World episode in years, and we said so when it released.
Season 4 succeeded because ArenaNet gave it a character worth caring about before asking us to care. Aurene’s arc across six episodes — hatchling to dragon to something the lore is still processing — was the first time a Living World protagonist carried genuine emotional weight from episode one to the finale. The payoff in “War Eternal” worked because the investment was real.
We’ll say it again at year’s end: Season 4’s conclusion was Guild Wars 2 operating at its narrative best. Dragonfall is a strong map that’s still populated. The Skyscale unlock was genuinely too gated at launch, but the mount itself is the most useful mobility tool the game has shipped since the Springer.
The Skyscale time-gate remains a design question ArenaNet should revisit. But the thing on the other side of the gate is worth having, and more players than expected actually completed the unlock. That says something about how the community responded to the challenge even while complaining about it.
August/September: The PAX Miscalculation and What It Revealed
We wrote carefully about the PAX West reaction at the time, and we stand by that coverage.
The community’s disappointment in not getting an expansion announcement was understandable. The behavior that followed — the personal attacks, the toxicity directed at individuals — was not. ArenaNet was right to name that publicly. The community was right to be uncomfortable hearing it.
What PAX 2019 actually revealed wasn’t that ArenaNet failed to deliver. It revealed that the gap between what veteran players expected and what ArenaNet’s resource reality could support had grown wide enough to become a communication failure. That’s on both sides of the relationship.
Looking back, the Icebrood Saga announcement contained three genuinely meaningful things: Heart of Thorns going free (immediately positive for new player access), Strike Missions as a structural addition to the content ladder (smart design, needed iteration), and a return to the Far Shiverpeaks for Jormag’s arc (lore that’s been backgrounded since Eye of the North).
None of those things were an expansion. All three of them were worth having.
“Whisper in the Dark” — the first Icebrood Saga episode — launched November 19 and the early reception has been positive. The Bjora Marches map is one of the better-designed open-world zones Season 5 has produced, with the environmental storytelling carrying the weight that the absence of the full cinematic budget in LW episodes always creates. Strike Missions added with the episode have given raiders a legitimate new entry point to recommend to curious players. The bridge is there.
October: Two Departures, One Giant Question Mark
October gave us two major events in the same weeks: Build Templates launching and Mike O’Brien announcing his departure. Both got talked about so much that it’s hard to know what to add at year’s end that we didn’t already say when they happened.
On Build Templates: the pricing model is still wrong. We believe ArenaNet needs to revisit account-wide expansion options and increase the default slot count. We believe that with the same conviction we had in October. The community has been persistent and clear about this, and the fact that a response hasn’t come yet doesn’t mean one won’t. We’re watching.
On Mike O’Brien: the piece we wrote in October said everything we wanted to say. The legacy is real. The game he built is still running. We hope ManaWorks makes something good.
The question that both events leave hanging is the same one: what does ArenaNet look like on the other side of its worst year? The answer starts being visible in 2020. The Icebrood Saga has to deliver. Strike Missions have to keep bringing players into organized content. The monetization model has to find the right balance between sustaining the studio and respecting players’ wallets.
We’re watching all of it.
The Community’s Year
2019 was hard on the Guild Wars 2 community in ways that went beyond the game itself.
The PAX West discourse was the most publicly visible moment of the community at its worst. The behavior that followed the announcement — and ArenaNet’s decision to name it publicly — sparked one of the more uncomfortable conversations the GW2 space has had about the gap between legitimate criticism and abusive behavior. That conversation isn’t done.
But the community also showed what it can be at its best this year. The support networks that formed for the laid-off ArenaNet employees in February — portfolio signal-boosting, job leads shared publicly, financial support from players — were the GW2 community doing exactly what communities are supposed to do. That matters.
The content creator scene stayed active through all of it. Streamers and YouTubers kept running events, guiding players through Season 4 collections, theory-crafting the Icebrood Saga. The third-party tool community — ArcDPS, GW2Efficiency, MetaBattle, Hardstuck — kept the endgame infrastructure running. The guild officers who run WvW coverage hours did their coverage hours. The raid teachers kept training new players in spite of the content gap.
The game’s community is not identical to its Reddit discourse or its loudest Twitter moments. Most of the Guild Wars 2 community spent 2019 playing the game, helping each other, and logging in. That’s worth saying explicitly.
What 2019 Actually Meant
Guild Wars 2 in 2019 looked, at several points, like it might be entering the quiet drawdown. The layoffs in February. The departure of its founding president in October. The PAX reveal that left a segment of the community wondering whether the game had a future worth investing in.
What 2019 actually proved is that the game is sturdier than its worst weeks suggested.
The content shipped. The story moved. New features launched. The Icebrood Saga is running. Strike Missions are in the game. The population, while smaller than peak years, is still there — still running Dragonfall, still queueing WvW on the weekend, still arguing about builds in guild chat.
Guild Wars 2 is a game that survived its hardest year. That’s not a small thing. A lot of MMOs that hit a year like 2019 don’t survive it. This one did, and it did it while shipping better story content than it had in years.
We don’t know what 2020 looks like yet. We know the Icebrood Saga still has episodes to run. We know ArenaNet has reasons to keep going. We know the game we’ve been covering for seven years is still there to cover.
That’s enough to log in on January 1st.
Who Built This Year
Before we close the year: thank you to every player who kept the maps populated when the discourse was loudest. Thank you to the raid teams who train new players for free. Thank you to the WvW commanders who tagged up when the server needed it. Thank you to the content creators who made guides for the Skyscale collection when the community was still figuring out where the eggs were.
Thank you to the ArenaNet developers who kept working through February and kept shipping. We see the work.
And thank you to everyone who reads Exitializ. We’ve been doing this since 2012, and we plan to keep doing it.
See you in the Far Shiverpeaks.
What to Watch in 2020
- Icebrood Saga Episode 2 — no date yet. The pacing of the Saga will be one of the defining stories of early 2020.
- Strike Mission expansion — whether additional Strike Missions release alongside story episodes or on a separate schedule.
- Build Template pricing response — has ArenaNet adjusted the model? Are account-wide options coming?
- WvW World Restructuring — the long-discussed WvW server alliance system has been in development for years. 2020 might be when it arrives.
- Any expansion tease — if a third expansion is in development, some signal is likely to surface before 2020 is over. Watch the ArenaNet job listings as much as the official announcements.
2019 is done. Tyria is still standing. Let’s see what comes next.
Tags: Year in Review, 2019, ArenaNet, Icebrood Saga, Living World, Guild Wars 2, Community, Retrospective