History Videogame / GuildWars2

** This is particularly egregious if you're playing as a norn: in one high-level personal story mission, Trahearne explains norn memorial customs, instructing the player on how to properly eulogize a fallen compatriot. If you are a norn, though, YouShouldKnowThisAlready.

** The '''Daredevil''' takes the concept of the duelist further, granting a third endurance bar for more dodges and an array of physical utility skills that interrupt and disable enemies. Their trademark weapon is a staff, but used as a [[SimpleStaff melee striking weapon]] rather than a [[MagicStaff magical implement]].

* SchmuckBait: One environmental weapon you can get has a skill called "Red Button" with the description "Has 'Do Not Press' written on it." Using said skill blows up the weapon, setting you on fire.

*** In the same vein, a reward for watching the Season 1 review is a Gift from Scarlett. Interacting with it will instantly put the character into the downed state.

* DifficultySpike: The first expansion, Heart of Thorns, was a ''considerable'' jump in difficulty over most of the content that had come before it. While the story missions themselves weren't a ''huge'' jump up, the open world was ''far'' more dangerous- almost all the enemies in the Heart of Maguuma were DemonicSpiders, and the maps were larger, more complex and more dangerous than anything from the core game. Path of Fire, by comparison, was considerably easier to manage- perhaps most notably, combat-based hero points were no longer all group events that required you to fight champion-level foes and could once again be soloed relatively easily.

* BadassNormal: Compared to the more magical/technical classes, the Warriors. They never use magic or devices in fighting (the closest are the banners and they're not used for offense but for support) and all of their abilities are raw strength. Taken UpToEleven with Berserker, which amplifies said raw strength.

* NiceHat: For characters of the Adventurer professions, completing the story mission for any of the dungeons rewards you a very stylish hat.
** One of the background options for the norn has you fighting Nollar for his VERY NiceHat.

* SoftWater: Death by falling is very much a thing in the game, especially in cities where floors are layered (Rata Sum and the Grove come to mind). However, dropping from an equally great height into water lets your character get away perfectly unscathed. There's even a small set of diving achievements where, dressed in nothing but a pair of goggles and your race's default underwear, you leap off a high point; the achievement is awarded when you successfully hit the water. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnX-fbsQzE A Verdant Brink diving achievement]] takes this UpToEleven: you have to dive through forest right into a small pool of water that can be easily missed because you can't see where you're falling.

** Apparently WordOfGod on one of the devstreams is that they're actually JustFriends, which would make this a pretty major RelationshipWritingFumble.

* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: {{Inverted|Trope}} with the Thieves Guild elite skill that summons a guy with [[GunsAkimbo dual pistols]] and a girl with [[DualWielding dual]] [[KnifeNut daggers]].

** Over the course of your personal story, you'll meet a ''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters lot]]'' [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters of characters]]. Not all of them will make it through alive.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** Finding and getting to many of the vistas entails ''a lot'' of platforming for an MMORPG. Having hidden jumping puzzles is also unusual in the MMO genre.
** Some of the Living World Season 1 content also falls under this category. One of the more extreme examples is the [=SNES=]-inspired Super Adventure Box release, nestled between the first battle against [[BigBad Scarlet]] and the release that buffed Tequatl.

* MagicPotion: Artificers can create potions that give you combat bonuses against specific types of enemies, as well as tonics that temporarily change your character's appearance into a different species. They are made by combining gems, gatherable vegetables, and specific types of VendorTrash dropped from monsters.

** [spoiler: It's revealed in the Icebrood Saga that because the dwarves are now made of stone, they're actually now vulnerable to corruption by Primordus.]]

* IfIWantedYouDead: Early in ''Heart of Thorns'', one meta-event involves a group of sylvari Pact members working with a group of charr Pact aviators. Since this ''is'' early in ''Heart of Thorns'', it's just after large numbers of sylvari were taken over by Mordremoth, and the charr are somewhat skeptical about working with sylvari at all. Five missions into the six-mission chain, an annoyed Laranthir finally drops this trope on the charr leader.

* UpdatedRerelease: Living World Season 1, which was originally [[PermanentlyMissableContent only available for a short time]], was added back into the game in 2022 with new achievements and [[CallForward plentiful forshadowing]] for future storylines in the form of various notes scattered throughout.

** The rewards for completing the Halloween event are a title... and a [[NiceHat hat]].

** In Timberline Falls (which occupies the general area where the region called Snake Dance was in the first game), the ruins of Camp Rankor -- which was, in the original Guild Wars, the first southern outpost of the famous/notorious "Droknar's Forge run" -- are now a Durmand Priory archaeological excavation site, and the location of [[spoiler:a key step in your character's Personal Story, where he/she and Trahearne must rescue members of that Priory expedition from an onslaught of Risen]].

** "Living World Season 1" was only available for about a month before being removed from the world, never to be seen again. This was especially bad as new content was being provided every 2 weeks. Starting from Season 2, new content was made permanent, with new players being able to buy it for gems. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Season 1, there is no practical way to add any of this content back into the game, though Anet was able to compromise by adding an optional event that shows the main important events of Season 1 via flashbacks, as well as exposition on several major characters who debuted in that Season. Four of the combat instances can also be accessed through the Vision Pool when visited during the Icebrood Saga, while some of the shared dungeons became Fractals.

* TemporaryOnlineContent: Living World Season 1 was an experiment in continued content release, making each chapter available for about one month before being removed permanently. Don't log in during that time? Too bad, even if it affects the world at large. Complaints about this revised later seasons to be entirely replayable and locking each map in time as far as story is concerned.

* DoubleUnlock: Essentially the Mastery system. A mastery path first gets unlocked by achieving a specific task (usually reaching a specific area), but then the player must earn a certain amount of experience, ''then'' spend a certain amount of mastery points (either Core or Maguuma, depending on the mastery) to be able to actually use the skill.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: [[spoiler:For the final battle against Balthazar's Forged army, his mighty Warbeast, and the God of War himself, Rytlock gives you his FlamingSword Sohothin to wield. It's ''incredibly'' powerful, capable of unleashing huge swaths of flame which can cut through Forged like butter, and has two "super moves" with extremely long cooldowns that can annihilate (or at least knock huge chunks off) everything around you.]]

* {{Steampunk}}: The charr and the engineer class.

** [[spoiler:It's later revealed that Soo-Won, the Deep Sea Dragon, is actually benevolent. The darkness in the ocean only emerged after she left to protect Cantha a century ago. Which means that the mother, and most powerful, of the Elder Dragons, was in the depths trying to protect the world from something that dwelt down there in the darkest parts of the ocean. And now she's dead.]]

** [[Spoiler: The fourth major release involves you dispelling a primordial force of chaos that has possessed and corrupted the final elder dragon, who is the mother of the other five elder dragons and the being who literally created Tyria out of the Void.]]

** ''End of Dragons'' starts with you investigating the return of the Aetherblade Pirates from Season 1, and their activities on Cantha. Then, in chapter 7, Deepest Secrets, that entire plot gets thrown out the window. [[It turns out that Soo-Won, the Elder Dragon of Water, was willingly bound into jadetech reactor that powers New Kaineng City. But she is attacked by the leader of the Aetherblades, who uses Aurene's magic to overwhelm Soo-Won and drive her into a ranpage. As Soo-Won is consumed by magic, the Void she fought to keep out begins to re-enter Tyria, resulting in reality beginning to break down across the globe.]]

The game is set in the continent of Tyria, on the world of [[PlanetEngland Tyria]], 250 years after ''VideoGame/GuildWars''. Five [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Elder Dragons]] have awakened and are wreaking havoc across the planet; cutting off continents, flooding cities and, in the case of [[BigBad Zhaitan]], raising undead armies.

* ArcNumber: 6. Six human gods, six Elder Dragons, six major races (counting the unplayable tengu, which were originally supposed to be playable), each corresponding to the awakening place of each Elder Dragon[[note]]humans -- Zhaitan, charr -- Kralkatorrik, asura -- Primordus, norn -- Jormag, sylvari -- Mordremoth, tengu -- "Bubbles"[[/note]], six racial skills per race (for humans, they correspond to one of the six gods each), six orbs in The All and the supposed vision of the Eternal Alchemy in Omadd's machine (which, again, seem to correspond to the Elder Dragons)...

** The Destroyers of Primordus also seem to be "adapted" versions of other creatures, and Zhaitan more or less does that too (although he [[OurZombiesAreDifferent corrupts corpses]] instead of live specimens. The Deep Sea Dragon also apparently has tentacle-covered corrupted minions, although we never see any in-game (and indeed, most of the races question whether he even exists). That makes it the norm for dragon minions, with the only exception being the dragon we don't know about.

* TheDragon: No [[IncrediblyLamePun puns]] here, but each Elder Dragon has a champion that they invest a good chunk of their power in. A few appear in-game as fightable bosses, including (but not limited to) The Shatterer, champion of Kralkatorrik; Tequatl the Sunless, champion of Zhaitan; and the Claw of Jormag. Others are mentioned in the novels, and three appear in the original ''VideoGame/GuildWars,'' [[HeelFaceTurn Glint]], [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Great Destroyer]], and the champion of Jormag who can be seen [[SealedEvilInACan frozen in Drakkar Lake.]]

When Season 4 finished in May 2019, [=ArenaNet=] moved immediately into Living World Season 5, known as "The Icebrood Saga", dealing with Jormag and a new threat arising from the charr horde. During a livestream celebrating the 8th anniversary of Guild Wars 2, a third expansion, "End of Dragons", was finally announced, promising a return to the highly requested Cantha. "End of Dragons" is currently scheduled for a February 28, 2022 release.