The final Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds update sends it out with a bang

With so many diverse MMORPG worlds to choose from these days, it can be hard to pick one. I've personally lost weeks to Final Fantasy 14's Eorzea, but World of Warcraft's Azeroth and ESO's Tamriel continue to invite me back, and I just can't say no. Then there's the continent of Tyria, the land of Guild Wars 2. This free-to-play MMO has been going strong for more than a decade now, with last year's Janthir Wilds expansion introducing player housing and the two-handed spear weapon type. Now, JW's third and final major content update is here, called Absolution, with plenty of reasons to jump back in.

The highlight of Absolution is definitely the all-new map: Bava Nisos. Built into the side of a great mountain, this area is filled with gigantic halls, twisting passages, and a decaying city. Formerly a stronghold of the mursaat, the spellcasting group we've been encountering in recent Guild Wars 2 expansions, Bava Nisos contains a climactic map-wide meta-event. You'll work alongside MMO factions supporting the Tyrian Alliance to fight to the Mists gate at the center of the city.

There's also the newest fractal dungeon, Kinfall, which puts you in the boots of a small band of lowland kodan defending their homeland. Arenanet is changing how the new fractal dungeon plays, however. "In response to player feedback, with Kinfall we've intentionally stepped back from the raid-like complexity of more recent fractals in favor of a streamlined and repeatable experience reminiscent of some of our earlier fractals. The challenge mode for Kinfall will release three weeks later, in our Tuesday June 24 game update."

If you're looking for even more of a challenge, Absolution brings the third and final Covergences boss encounter, Ura. Commanding the scalding steam and geysers of the mountain, if you've fought her before, this encounter will have some new mechanics to keep you on your toes.

With Janthir Wilds finally introducing player housing via homesteads, Arenanet is also making some improvements to the system in Absolution. The homestead decoration cap has now been doubled to 2,000, which you can achieve by training the new Grandmaster Handiworker Crafting tier and buying increases from Deft Lahar. You can also get a new homestead sky customization option from the Black Lion Trading Company, with conjured doorway skins also arriving later this year.

That's not all, though, as Arenanet has a handful of quality-of-life improvements for Guild Wars 2 as well. First up is the Wizard's Portal Tome, which is available for all players and lets you access all of your teleportation items via one single item. Then there's the Wizard's Gobbler, which condenses all converters into a single item to free up inventory space.

Now that the Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds story arc is coming to a close, Arenanet is starting to look ahead. In July the team will announce the game's next expansion, with plenty of events and updates coming before then. It also looks like there's going to be another beta event for the PvP Push mode in August. Like Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals, you and your team need to push an objective into an enemy base, while defending it from being moved back into your own.

Arenanet has now released the final Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds update, Absolution, for the free-to-play MMORPG.

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