It appears the team behind Guild Wars 2 is getting something of a shake up as ex Game Director Colin Johanson returns to the title and the new End Of Dragons Expansion get pushed back all in one announcement.
Just before the weekend loaded, ArenaNet dropped a ton of news on the state of the studio. The team behind Guild Wars 2 is getting something of a refresh in its leadership with the news that a familiar face is set to put everything back on the table when the return. Former Guild Wars 2 game Director, Colin Johansen is set to return to the Bellevue Studio, after 11 years at ArenaNet, and a stint away. Colin will return to Guild Wars 2 to help helm the studio alongside the current Guild Wars franchise lead bringing a wealth of experience and a great deal of good will with him too. It’s clear that it’s not just the community who are excited for this return, as Colin noted when this news dropped:
“This community, and the team at ArenaNet hold a deep place in my heart, and returning feels like coming home for me.”
Colin took some time to talk through the details of his return on an official news post, as well as introducing another familiar face to the fans. Josh “Grouch” Davis, is also set to return to the Guild Wars 2 team. After leaving ArenaNet in 2016 and taking the role of Head of Community at Amazon, Grouch heads back to Tyria as the Head of Live Operations, as an advocate for the players that fill this title.
In Game Improvements
The hiring announcements also come alongside some news on systems I thought were simply dead in the water by now. As it turns out, World vs World Alliances look like they are once again a priority. The system to dynamically scale and match teams off guild and servers against each other in Guild Wars 2’s realm vs realm battle for supremacy is once again on the table, and Friday’s news post details exactly how fans of WvW can expect to see it droll out into testing. The WvW information gets screen time alongside some much-needed performance updates. There is currently a focus on upgrading an aging in game engine to DirectX 11. Considering Guild Wars 2 was in development for years before its 2012 release date, that’s a long time coming.
All this focus does, however, come at a cost. The upcoming End of Dragons expansion has been delayed late 2021 to early 2022. For now, that means we will all have to wait a little longer to return to Cantha. Your can read the full blog post over at the official Guild Wars 2 website now and go post some Colin memes on the socials.
