First Teaser For Gw2 "Expansion 5" - Pre-Searing or Verdant Cascades? 

25 min analysis from one picture...I expect nothing less ;D

We're time-traveling back to steal a searing cauldron to replace the broken hero point in Iron Marches. While we're there we will save Ascalon City, avert the Foefire, acquire commando technology, and otherwise mess with the timeline to create a multiverse for Guild Wars 3: Utopia and Beyond to exist in.

I just want some slower paced maps..like vanilla. I’m tired of every map being a world shattering chaotic crisis.

I couldn't agree more, a normal fantasy setting with normalish mobs and a nice adventure to go with it. A little less "the world is over."

I definitely agree about having a "grounded" area. I love the super fancy crazy places, but I do also really love the beautiful "normal" zones from the past, and it does feel like it has been a long time since we've had that. That was one of the things I loved about south Drizzlewood, in that forest. But that was only half a map, and was 4 or 5 years ago now. If the map(s) are more like this teaser image, I'm excited for that alone! I also hope it's not pre-searing. Like you said, I want new places, not just retreading old places brought back for nostalgia.

Honestly as awesome as mounts were to the game...they really have been detrimental to map design for the purpose of exploration like some feared. Something about walking around makes a difference. Kinda wish mounts were a bit more restricted as to where you could use them. Might be too late for that.

Another possibility - the search for other Sylvari not awakened from the PaleTree. Remember Malyck the Soundless? What if Exp 5 takes us on that search - into new woodlands north of Kryta and/or Maguuma? Time for some more Asura/Sylvari content after the recent Human/Charr/Norn heavy chapters!

I think the thing that a lot of the community are missing with this hype is that you cannot recapture the Pre-Searing magic in GW2. Pre-Searing isn't just about "looking pretty" - the entire gameplay of the area makes it what it is too. The enemies are sparse. Adventuring in the area feels like a leisurely walk around a beautiful landscape. Fighting the occasional hostile creature. There aren't high stakes, there aren't wars to win. You can explore at your own pace and just chill out. Even the NPCs give this feeling with the low-stakes quests you get. "Get me a flower," "Help me calm the rampaging bull," etc. Contrast that with GW2 and a hundred players zerging from event to event in a mad rush. Commanders frustratingly spamming in map chat "CoMe On GuYs We NeEd To PuSh ThE mEtAaAaAa". A giant world boss to fight every hour on the hour. Hundreds of skyscales storming by. Obscene player aesthetics.. GW2 will never have a zone that FEELS like Pre-Searing because the gameplay isn't compatible at all

Its probably a good reminder that the last update comes with an fractal (maybe pre searing?) and the last one in EoD was a hint at the demon lore. We may see where the fifth xpac takes place sooner than we think.

Honestly, I think we're going further into the Blood Legion Homelands. That image looked like Ascalonian land, with golden grass and a somewhat sparse Autumn forest. Grothmar Valley adheres to the base Ascalon palette, but IIRC theres are some new set pieces in foliage models (trees and such). So maybe that sort of stuff was prep for this upcoming expansion. Are we going to follow up on the Charr stuff since we sort of dropped it in Icebrood Saga? Will we see a Khan-Ur? That said, I've always LOVED the idea of going to the Woodland Cascades properly. None of the Drizzlewood Coast stuff; I wanna be immersed in a giant evergreen forest.

25min talk about a single picture is what we need

It really looks like pre. When you portal from Lakeside County through into Regent Valley and take a right down that path towards where you find Master Ranger Nente.

im sure it must be "Dalada Uplands" just outside Doomlore Shrine, or 1 of the map conectet 2 that map.. like Grothmar Wardowns or Sacnoth valley..

Ngl, Verdant cascades connecting all the way to north DR and Lake Doric has been one of my desires for years.. I want some of that classic core tyria/ascalon landscape with the added detail of icebrood saga locations.

0:03 Cosmetic Inspection 1:38 Expansion 5 Teaser Image: General Speculation 6:49 Pre-Searing 15:25 The Charr Homelands 19:38 Verdant Cascades 25:03 Outro

I really love the calm vibe of the picture. I spent so much time in pre-searing, it was so calming. I still listen to Gwen's theme and Eye of the Storm often because of the calm vibes and memories it gives me. I really hope we go north in the next expact near Janthir!

Thw delta and any of the empty map space around that delta makes sense. The skiff idea is prime due to the fact they added them recently and how popular they are in ganing atm. Plus what it would add to a game with underwrater combat etc. Perhaps underwater mounts?😮 I've been saying forever ( just like I said the extra weapons they just added) the next step is to add a sort of ' multi- class' system . The simple nostalgia theme of the screenshot brings me to that notion of GW1 . One of the first things you do is choose a secondary class to make your character unique. There is many ways they could do this but I believe it's through shared weapon skills across classes with restrictions. That mixed with the simplistic environment would bring so much. I agree the simpler RpG setting is much needed . It is exciting to know they have so much area on the map left to explore

Was really hoping the next expansion would deal more with the asura since we haven't focused in on them much before

Another thing I would personally like if it was the verdant cascades is that I’m a bit tired, personally, of places you can’t really walk to from central tyria. Heart of thorns was directly connected to the core maps via the silverwastes and it felt like a natural transition, especially since season 2 built it up so well. I liked the Crystal desert and cantha but needing to take a boat (or spend 10 silver waypointing haha) is just kind of wild and has merely added more blank spaces on the map that I wish would be filled in. Either way I hope the expansion feels a bit more grounded than the last one, it would be a nice change of pace. Also I would love to have the brisban portal finally work lol. The Wizard’s tower was kind of low-hanging fruit and they went for it, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the next low-hanging fruit they jump on.

I'm just glad we are getting a green area. One of the spots I loved in gw1 also was fishermans haven, which had changed a lot in gw2. Gw2 does have a lot of nice green spots, but not those beauty spots that just hit different like gw1 had.

6:47 - I for one would love more verticality HoT style, I feel that WT was a good idea but a bit poor on execution. Maybe Echovalds but with layers and a bit less clutered? 8:10 - as a non-gw1 player, as long as it's like PoF was, where allowed folks like me to find about the lore and at the same time lots of "hey this is where X person went" I think it's fine... but honestly I'd rather a new thing, maybe finally have some new things with centaurs? Maybe FINALLY DoW Tengu checking the waters and opening up a bit? (I know vegetation doesnt fit)

The 5th expansion screenshot reminds me of Dalada Uplands area from the Eye of the North expansion of Guild Wars 1. (Where the Devourer endboss Molotov Rocktail is patrolling)

I have recently gotten back into GW2 since putting the game down in 2020 and I have loved watching all of your story series and speculation videos, even if the stuff is old news at this point, but it is awesome to see how accurate you end up being. With that being said, I look forward to hopefully experiencing my first expac release and following your coverage the whole time! Keep up the excellent work!

Didn’t have a pre searing character so I just made a new one and went to regent valley. That is 1000% from regent valley right before you get to that ranger skills trainer

Thanks for covering this :)

I've been hyped for more Centaur stuff ever since the IBS trailer so Woodland Cascades is sounding pretty good to me. I also really enjoy the idea of getting a delta in GW2, it could be so beautiful! Plus it gives me Nightfall nostalgia, i really loved the swampy parts of Istan. No matter where we go though, i really like the look of the teaser image. Especially the density of hills and trees. It has this more closed in, tunnely feel i associate with GW1 so i can kinda see where people are coming from but still... How anyone can see this for a new map for GW2 and their first thought is pre-searing rather than charr homelands is, frankly, a bit ridiculous to me. As interesting and exciting as the idea of an expansion in the scrying pool is, i don't think i'm ready for it as the 2nd mini-expansion yet. Another thing this teaser could depict that you didn't talk about is Kryta. In their "After the Dragon Cycle"-blogpost they had mentioned that in the future, we might get more domestic plots and "tying up loose ends", so i think getting more maps in core tyria is totally on the table.

I have to say, I honestly don't even really care if your predictions are right or wrong, I just love hearing you speak and doing these deep lore dives. You're a great communicator and you know so much about this world, it's just a pleasure to hear you go on about it.

theres so much space on the right side of Charr lands, I think it goes there

The last time I felt connected to the environment in game was when Path of Fire came out. Everything about those zones feels so distinctly unique to the game, but also tied into a cultural look that ties to our own reality. I hope this next xpac feels more grounded as well!

I have been waiting for this upload - thank you WP, you are a gem. This video created so much nostalgia for me. I remember finding the profession trainers in the various locations throughout pre-searing to be a wonderous journey in itself. Finding Mhenlo in the Ashford Catacombs for the first time is one of my most joyful moments in Tyria.

Pre searing would be like FF Remake. Go back through the first story because someone is trying to change the future.

Wad waiting on a video from you about this :)

I don't think re-experiencing pre-searing would be a good thing for the current relationship Humans and Charr have made progress on in lore. There is still that hate somewhere within both factions

It's funny because I immediately thought it looked like Pre-searing when the video first showed me the area (this channel is my only connection to Guilds Wars 2 since I stopped playing a long time ago) and then heard in my head "The last day dawns on the kingdom of Ascalon".

OMG listening to the words "Searing Cauldron", some of us was doing the skyscale mount from SOTO, that this Searing Cauldron hero point was bugged for weeks, and the bugs have been reappear, maybe this was because the new expac feature linking to this hero point causes the bugs.

My first thought was also the Verdant Cascades- this picture really reads to me as similar to that one hidden vale up in Brisbane, and that area feels ripe for story for all the reasons you mentioned.

I think that we may be dealing with the ghosts of Ascalon soon if not next. One thing that Secrets of the Obscure, kind of deals with is fitting the concepts of souls/spirits into the magical ecosystem of Tyria. There is much lore about souls being used for power/magic, with some of Balthazar's lore, the eater of souls, and other things point to the fact that souls are a potent source of magic. Now Secrets of the Obscure puts that front and center, although indirectly. Secrets of the Obscure puts the idea that emotional responses somehow produce a meaningful quantity of energy/magic. So we can see that a soul is enriched with magic through emotional responses, and the Kryptis eat the energy that is generated from them. How emotions generate or collect magic may not be explained, but the idea that this process happens now exists. Souls/ghosts and magic are now tightly coupled together. The soul/mind concentrates magic whenever it has an emotional response which means... With the ghosts of Ascalon, we probably will soon realize, that these especially angry ghosts, are in fact concentrating a lot of magic. And magic collected by anger can't be very good. As champion of the prismatic dragon, I feel like it would be the Commander's priority to break up and return a bunch of anger coalesced magic and return it to the ley line streams so that Aurene can filter it and neutralize any malignant effect from it. So off to fix this magic unbalancing threat. I wonder if that is what the Elder Dragons where doing all along. Seeing too much life in Tyria, creating ghost with a portion that get stuck in Tyria. All their thoughts and emotions pulling in magic and needing to clear out a bunch of it to get magic flowing again.

Thanks to that file name leak, I think it's hard to argue against the Janthir delta (and it's definitely a very exciting location, so I'm happy for it). I will say that when I first saw this image it looked strikingly like that ravine in the first charr homelands map. The one just down the first hill with all the mantids in it. Of course, the problem with that, is I think we already went there in Grothmar Valley? Not sure how that lines up, but it's gotta be close at least. I wonder if that was on purpose to try and throw people off the scent?

Came back to GW2 some weeks ago after many years of forgetting it (man, i bought this game back in September 2012!). Still playing through all the experience I left. I hope there is more to come.

Please a map that doesnt take 5 minutes of bouncing off cliffs to get to a point 5ft away on the map but 200 above

Makes me think of the opening GW Prophecies cinematic. Has a shot of a valley with trees on the side. I think it's just that similarity that's hitting plays in the nostalgia brain.

I think that Delta Wild Bog file name is the biggest tell for sure. Almost certain now that we're headed to deal with Janthir stuff. Would tie into the Wizards from SotO and long time unexplored lore. The landscape and nature in the imagery DOES feel like Ascalon/Charr Homelands but at the same time, there's a lot less red/orange/yellow than I would expect. The large pine trees reminds me of Drizzlewood so it most closely connects to that part of the world.

It looks like a little pond behind the trees. Like you walk down towards the ocean. I believe this is next to the sea. Looks like a shore on the upper right side.

WP speculating about guild wars. Makes me feel , warm nostalgic and old at the same time.

Pre searing was... extremely good.

It's either Woodland Cascades/Isles of Janthir or Blood Legion Homelands. I've always wanted to see Isles of Janthir the most.

22:00 The Tarnished Coast is another "delta" on the world map that has been observable since release. That said, the landscape/tree don't match Caledon much at all. There are a few other deltas that popped up when the world map was expanded. There's one on an Island in the very NW corner of the map, cut out of the in game map. One on the east side of the large unexplored island west of the Fire Island's, also not viewable in game. Lastly, on Cantha's eastern shores appears to be delta landscape. Still, I agree that general vibe I get from this screenshots is most similar to areas we already visited near woodland cascades.

next expac: charr go insane and declare war on everyone. Everyone else are finally fed up and the commander is using some mist stuff to go back in time with the non-charr parts of the pact to stop the searing from happing and beating the charr back for good. It would be epic and fun.

Wouldn't it make sense for Peitha to betrays us after she usurps Eparch. She can then uses the old Mursaat portal that connects Nayos with the Isles of Janthir to invade Tyria.

100% agreed with you WP about the expansion concept, I still haven't gotten to Soto for this reason.

Even though I would really dislike going back to pre-searing, for me this is 100% pre, because it isnt any valley, it is THE valley. Look at the pre-searing starting sequence. ... the needle-trees in the back match that too

Yes, Grothmar Waley, that is exsakt vibe that i get from this picture, those grean parts of it. And it looks huge to me. (p.s.sorry on my english writing) I love it.❤

I think we'll have to acquire a broken amulet and then fight a hydra to get into a tucked away cave behind a small lake. Then we'll get dragged back in time and we'll get to fight Artorias of the abyss

WP classic vid! I love it!

Pre-Searing baby!!

I personally think we maybe going more to the Eastern regions of the core region. While GW2 covered a lot of the original regions from GW1, it is still only about 1/4 of the entire planet it self so there is a lot to cover for potential expansion if they are now focusing on exploring the rest of the planet.

Wooden Potatoes is back!!!!

It smells like regent valley in pre searing: it gives vibes of the devourer area entering from north...but as you said, could be anything resembling that places OMG I completely forgot about the Brisban Wildlands portal until now!!!!!

There is tons of areas in gw2 that look pre-searing like... not everything in Ascalon burn to the ground. Grothmar shows you that.

I think Verdant Cascades will be the one, and the main new feature will be player housing. Basically the same as guild halls, but only for individual players without the crazy requirements. And the point will be to expand north, build a new harbor city there.

I'm all for having a more "relaxing" expansion, because one can only go so far, with world ending crisis, and us being the only hope for salvation, and the chosen one, for so long, before all that loses its charm. If it's us going back in time, being able to enjoy the past areas, fine, so long as not us fcking with changing history, go for it. So long as nothing massive, I'll be happy, be a normal person, dealing with "normal" things/threats, that won't cause end of the world. Of course we need a new guilhall as well, sort of how PoF guildhall was like, but less premade buildings, and areas for people to build stuff in there. Personally would love more forest vibe areas, like screenshot, and shiverpeaks now that Jormag is gone

@woodenpotatoes I think there is a fractal that brings us to during the searing ascalon, would be interesting to go to pre searing! Even as a fractal, imagine starting in a fractal at level 1 with out mounts as some fractals do and having the ability to scale up to level 20, and maybe even stay in the fractal with other players in outpost like zones!

Cautiously hyped

The teaser image doesn't look as autumnal (orange) as the various Ascalon / Charr Homeland maps we have seen from both gw1 and gw2. It looks very generic, and without anet accidentally leaking its filename, it would have been very difficult to narrow down its general location to what you mentioned in point #3.

What I really would like to see, is the region eastward of the Brand. The homeland of the Oger. Connect this with the Ashlegion lore. Go a step back from an "existential Threat to Tyria" to a kind of "Explorerstyle" expansion. We could find a Rift there for the Expansion afterward or similar findings. Because in my opinion, SotO is much to rushed and compact as story. Let me dream of a slower and more relaxed paste. And a last thing; I want my Golem back Anet!! So give us the Relic of the Golem in the next expansion! :)))

dwc is one of my favorite zones aesthetically and a lot of the architecture isn't used anywhere else; it might be a good chance to use some more 'medieval fantasy' assets like in dwc Also. It'll probably be east of Grothmar Valley. Using the environment pictured and the world map compass as my 2 key clues; they need an expac in the northeast, and its untapped territory, plus it looks like they already have zones picked out if you use map detail as a loose indicator. My guess, a Charr centric expac in the northeast.

Makes me think of the pre searing area to the left of ascalon, like with the statue of blath and I think a necro and warrior or monk trainer

My first thought was Woodland Cascades. Never heard it called Verdant Cascades before, but same thing. They keep name dropping Janthir so it seemed obvious. Frode is also talking about something happening in Cantha too that piqued my interest if you listen to him in the Wizard's Tower. I would love an expac that darts back and forth around the globe, not just 3 to 4 maps adjacent to one another. Oh and Isn't the land directly above Brisban known as the Sage Lands?

Fashion mafia arguing for gatekeeping cosmetic choices is the best part coming from this blogpost.

It looks like dalda uplands near doonlore shrine and the cathedral of flames . I would love to see that dungeon in the game

Guild Wars 3 will be set on the Human home world... and will tell the stories leading up to proph... We will learn how/who brought humans to Tyria

I wouldn't mind visitting the alternate Tyria where the Asuran PC conquers the world with steam creatures.

Would love more Charr stories and characters! So, so good!

I think it could be the unknown continent southwest of Tyria, the Wetlands/Howling Peninsula. A bog is a type of wetland after all. Ngl tho I'm def starting to get the vibe that ANet doesn't wanna touch the Dominion of Winds with a ten foot pole. DoW seemed like the perfect spot for a mini-expac, esp after all the setup in IBS and EoD, but we're closing in on the second expac now and still no sign of the Dominion.

I'll go with the file name, that's gotta be the Woodland Cascades... also, remember that IBS trailer with the centaurs flogging some people? the landscape for that shot looks just like the one from this shot; plus - and I'll say this with a li'l bit of snark yes - it'd go right along this mini-xpack trend of (heavily) rehashing assets and content and what-not, although in this case not quite really since whatever ANet had already developed for the later half of the Saga in the Cascades never actually came into fruition and so, for the 5th expansion now, we'll be able to see some of those interesting concepts come to life, fortunately.

Okay, but I need that music playing in the background at 3:22 cause I don't recognize it :( Anyway, great video, I was waiting what are u able to cook from one picture and you did not disappoint.

this look llke the part of the krakkortorrite that branded in when you did the path of fire expansion? it could be after a few year later that it gave new life after that elder dragon was brought down tho. possibly kraitan remade or something evil. btw that kraitan topic idk cause I still havent done soto yet and im still trying to do icebrood saga for skycales tho.

That picture is Pre Searing, is it not? Edit: later in the video. Yeah, I don't think they would have posted this particular pic that immediately hits everybody in the gut as "pre searing" if they wanted to do anything else. GW2 now has not only the mists, but parallel worlds and time travel, right? So it's super easy to come up with an excuse to go back to pre-searing.

I think the first two zones of cantha were the coolest in terms of atmosphere

I think a pre searing only expansion wouldn't work because it was human centric. However I do think a fractal of the mission we do after speaking to sir Tydus where we move from pre to post could be something that happens.

I mean, I think the delta really cinches it. Not to mention the current expansion is already touching on mursaat stuff, so going to janthir could be a continuation of that

22:06 The path leads down to a water's edge in the screenshot. It's just difficult to make out at first because of the haze and sun rays. But it's definitely there 😜 If you look straight down the center and to the left of the fallen pine tree, you'll see the outline (also marked by that backwards S-shaped dead tree thing). I was really really hoping for that Unending Ocean + Largos expansion with the deep sea mystery (I know I sound like a broken record at this point xD), so I'm feeling let down once again... and it feels worse cuz I'm not a fan of SoTO at all as far as story + map design. Been a long time waiting for a new expansion to excite me after EoD... But we'll see. Hopefully this turns out to be something refreshing after all 🙏

honestly you know how auric basin has that very pretty colorful fog? this pic makes me think its normal terrain with very light morning fog and some leaf or firefly particles. yeah :)

We are travelling back to presearing. Inspired by the Terminator quest, we actually take out gwen instead of her mother. This will prevent the eventual birth of Krlogan

Honestly, I do think there is some validity to the Janthir and blood stone theory. There is one bloodstone that’s briefly talked about in the Straights of Devastation I think during an achievement for SoTO I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t but there was a connection between the Kryptis, the Wizard’s Court and the bloodstone there. If they actually mean what they say about how the end of one expac will hint to the next, who’s to say that bloodstone magic won’t be apart of the final episode of SoTO?

I really think they're heading towards the Isle of Janthir.

I have a feeling its going to be something with either more in depth human or asuran lore focus. Going by the logic that we had a sylvari concentrated expac a norn one and i think a charr one. I'm not explaining it good but we kinda had an in depth look ( in a way) with sylvari, char and norn. I dont know if there has been concentrated on humans and asura so my guess is its going to be one of those 2. xD

4:40 yeah man commander/wayfinder/herald is kinda retired now in his/her 35's to their 50's now lol. (depending on the player's character) It's been 13 years since personal story in 1324 AE to 1337 AE Peitha's Rebellion. Out there fishing on his/her lil boat.

Hands down the best mmorpg i have ever played, i started playing 1 month ago after playing black desert online for years to 688gs, final fantasy, wow, eso and many more over the years, this is the one and eso where i absolutely loved the story got abosolutely hooked into the world and atmosphere, guild wars 2 is now my main game until a new one comes out

I hope we are going north, past Lake Doric etc

I was thinking it might be the area just west of LA. Not for any particular reason, just feels good. Also, is it just me, or is the world map on the wiki bigger than it used to be?

My first guess is that this is a misdirect: a patch of calm and normal in an otherwise extraordinary environment. Something akin to Secluded Glen in Fields of Ruin, as contrasted by Varim's Run. If it's not, Charr homelands and Woodland Cascades seem like decent shots, I agree.

Charr no longer warmongers, they are just another domesticated cats nowadays.

The Commando guys are still around. In SoTo, they appear near the Derelict Ruins...

Is this that part in Brisbane Wildlsmds that little entrance that leads nowhere

Gwen & Terminator Golem. I want to go pre-ascalon and do a meta event with Young Gwen, Prince Runic, Menlo, and Cinne.

Pre searing would definitely make me go back into the game

I hope we're going back in time to alter history. Pre-searing forever!

At this point we really need a wrap up of the charr civil war. The Legions were the minority, yet still won, and who knows how many charr were physically damaged, disabled, or sterile from the.. "Frosting"(? for lack of a better verb). Like the charr nation is super broken based on where IBS left us (assuming the devs remember what they wrote).

Personally, I'm hoping for either adding to the Charr homelands in gw2, or Ash Legion homelands, or Janthir/Woodland Cascade.