Guild Wars 1 Story Relevance

Good day all,

I haven't started Season 3 or the PoF story yet but based on some feedback from others and tidbits of the future content I've seen, it seems knowledge of the GW1 story will really enhance the experience in GW2?Cheers

You will not miss the broad story but undoubtly it will enhance the experience, there are a lot of references to GW1.

GW1 & GW2 are set in the same universe, hundreds of years apart. Playing GW2 without having played GW1 first is akin to watching a UK/American WWII movie without first having seen a movie about the American Revolution: you'll miss some references and call backs. In the full context of GW2, you'll be fully informed.

That said, due to the nature of the story and there being fantasy elements, the analogy isn't perfect. Over the course of the original game, expansions, and Living World episodes, some figured we met in GW1 reappear (as ghosts, because they live that long, because of 'magic', etc.).

tl;dr it's not that big a deal for the vast majority of players.

Season 3 is perhaps the most related to GW1, as it continues and concludes the plot of the mursaat and White Mantle first introduced with Prophecies. It's not really needed to understand the plot, as there's a recap of the important parts in the Episode 1 map; it's more important to have played through the human PS than GW1 really.

Path of Fire and Season 4 does have a number of GW1 references, but nothing explicitly related to the main plot. It's mostly character or land background and easter eggs than main plot.

Vizier Khilbron unleashed the Titans, through Prince Rurik, when King Alderbern suggested to him, his son (albeit the literal narrative was kinda harsh) to go find the Vizier and open the Caldera, the Portal of the Titans.

and why do the GW1 Titans looked like gigantic Crabs? To pull down their enemies into the Caldera and get cooked. (google Crab Mentality)

At most you'll be wondering who a few characters are.. and why they are significant but overall Gw2 does a good job at filling you in on their basic backstory so you can understand what's going on in Gw2.

Us Gw1 players will naturally tend to have more excitement about them though as we know them from the first game.

Plus it is really cool to be going through a land and thinking I remember this place from GW1 or I remember when these ruins were in one piece. the part I love is checking out all the gravestones with characters that I remember from GW1

I wouldn't play gw1 unless you are interested in its type of play. There is a lot of text reading as a means of conveying the story in gw1. Yes there are cutsceens too.I recorded a mission I did in GW1 recently (Thunderhead Keep). This is pretty much what the game looks and plays like in 2019.

I'm currently playing GW1. It has enhanced my understanding of GW2 quite a bit. I'd say it's worth playing for the lore alone.