Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns expansion announced

ArenaNet hosted their PAX South panel today revealing the first expansion for Guild Wars 2. Titled "Heart of Thorns," the expansion is "founded on the idea that the journey is the goal," and continues the game's tradition of "challening the conventions of MMOs to fulfill the promise of what online worlds should be."

What does that mean exactly?

Well, for starters, the expansion will introduce the Mastery system, which provides "new training opportunities for characters beyond level 80. Players will be able to master abilities like "hang gliding in the jungle, tearing the bark off of heavily armored Mordrem, or building new collections that earn precursors to a legendary weapon."

Maguuma Jungle, home of growing hordes of Mordemoth's minions and allies from ancient civilizations, promises challenging group content, new open world jungle maps, events and storylines, and boss battles. Guild Halls will also be able to be built in the heart of Maguuma.

Gameplay is further evolved with profession specializations that will unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession. This also includes new traits, skills, and unique mechanics which "will transform your profession into something new."  A new Revenant profession is also being added to the game, which is both heavily armored and equipped with "otherworldly powers of the Mists."

For those of you who enjoy PvP, a new Stronghold Game Mode and a new World vs World map, Borderland, is being added.

For Stronghold, here's the description:

Gather supply to hire soldiers. Battle for control of heroes. Man the trebuchet to defend your stronghold, and storm the enemy gates to defeat the guild lord! Use our new guild team feature to team up and battle to the top of the leaderboards. Stronghold offers an entirely new way to play competitive PvP in Guild Wars 2!

And for the WvW New Borderland:

Experience epic battlefield combat like never before in World vs. World's latest core addition, the new Borderlands map. Navigate treacherous heights with traps that blow your foes to the depths below and ferocious defenders to help keep the enemy at bay. Map objectives will be more important than ever before, as they'll unlock new strategies, tactics, and play mechanics that you'll want to use to your world's advantage!

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns doesn't yet have a release date, but an early-access beta will be offered at a later date. Heart of Thorns will be a paid expansion, but like the base game, there are no subscription fees. The original Guild Wars 2 game is required to play Heart of Thorns.

As a reminder, Guild Wars 2 is on sale this weekend for just $9.99.

[Guild Wars 2]