Do I need to play the story / expansions in order?

[Nyel.1843]

Hey there,

I'm playing GW2 on and off since its 2012 release, but never got to finish the main story, nor the living world stories or any other expansion storylines yet. While I own every expansion, I just never got to that point in the game. 

So although I'm playing this game ocassionally for 11 years, I never defeated Zhaitan, Mordremoth or any of the other dragons. Now I really want to get into the game (again), but I'm not feeling leveling a brand new character yet again. I thought about boosting one (I have several boosts) and then starting to experience all of the stories - does that make sense? Do I need to play them in order as they are building up on each other?

So first I need to do all the personal and main story of the "Vanilla" game, after that the living world, then HoT > LW > PoF > LW > EoD etc.? What would be the best way for me to do it? I'd be glad if someone could help me out.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can play stories in any order you choose; but, if you want to play the over-reaching story in order you would play:

Core Story

Living World Season 1

Living World Season 2

Heart of Thorns

Living World Season 3

Path of Fire

Living World Season 4

The Icebrood Saga

End of Dragons and content associated with EoD  (End of the Dragon Saga that began at launch)

Secrets of the Obscure (released in less than 2 weeks)

Edited August 9, 2023 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[Tere.4759]

No, for comprehension probably but you can do them anyway you choose.  I jump around a lot.  Decided I would finish LW3 and LW4 at the same time to get the mounts though with all the skyscale work it took after LW4, I just may wait until SOTO for that to see how it works out.

[Danikat.8537]

It depends on what you want to get out of it. GW2's story is like a TV show, you can play it in any order you like but there is an continuous narrative so if you want to understand what's going on you need to play it all in order. But if you just want to see specific parts, or if you want to unlock the maps and rewards but don't care about the story itself you can skip to whichever parts interest you.

The intended order (shown in the story journal) is:
Personal Story
Season 1
Season 2
Heart of Thorns
Season 3
Path of Fire
Season 4
Season 5 / Icebrood Saga
End of Dragons
Secrets of the Obscure

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Nyel.1843 said:

Hey there,

I'm playing GW2 on and off since its 2012 release, but never got to finish the main story, nor the living world stories or any other expansion storylines yet. While I own every expansion, I just never got to that point in the game. 

So although I'm playing this game ocassionally for 11 years, I never defeated Zhaitan, Mordremoth or any of the other dragons. Now I really want to get into the game (again), but I'm not feeling leveling a brand new character yet again. I thought about boosting one (I have several boosts) and then starting to experience all of the stories - does that make sense? Do I need to play them in order as they are building up on each other?

So first I need to do all the personal and main story of the "Vanilla" game, after that the living world, then HoT > LW > PoF > LW > EoD etc.? What would be the best way for me to do it? I'd be glad if someone could help me out.

Short answer is no. Longer answer is yes if you want to understand the evolution of the story and not run into map obstacles . Say that as have a returning guildmate after about 9 years and they are jumping back and fourth across content. I think their biggest issue with not going in order is running into terrain features that are expecting them to have ways to navigate around and they haven't got to those features and then need to back track to get those options to move forward. So can, yes you can but....

[Teknomancer.4895]

As others have said, you can play it in order or not. There will be some storyline and travel-access weirdness in places if you go out of order, but it won't break anything aside from maybe your patience. 😛

If you want to go for "mostly in order except for a QoL feature or two," I would suggest starting the first Path of Fire episode and play through until you get your Raptor. Then leave PoF, go back and play the thing in its "proper" order, if that's what you're mostly interested in doing.

It's a game, approach it in whatever order seems most fun to you.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

As others have said, you can play it in order or not. There will be some storyline and travel-access weirdness in places if you go out of order, but it won't break anything aside from maybe your patience. 😛

If you want to go for "mostly in order except for a QoL feature or two," I would suggest starting the first Path of Fire episode and play through until you get your Raptor. Then leave PoF, go back and play the thing in its "proper" order, if that's what you're mostly interested in doing.

It's a game, approach it in whatever order seems most fun to you.

It is no longer necessary to jump ahead to acquire the Raptor.

Accounts with any of the Elder Dragon Saga expansions: Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire or End of Dragons unlocked will be granted permanent access to the basic raptor mount after they reach level 10 on a single character.

All accounts with a character already over level 10 when this change was implemented on August 2nd 2022 missed this initial unlock checkpoint, but they will get the unlock on the next multiple of 10 level (so, a level 24 character will get the unlock at level 30).

[ArchonWing.9480]

No, I do the story out of order all the time but most of it is self contained enough to not bother me or I can fill in the blanks. The "main" story of each game/expansion does require you to follow it a bit more closely. You usually have to do a little bit of story to enter some new zones but it isn't much.

In my case, I did the main story up to the Orr part but got very annoyed at one of the developments considering the mentor and dropped it entirely, going to Living Story 1/2 and then HoT and living world s3. I eventually finished the main story for an achievement, or otherwise I wouldn't have done it at all.

I also never did most of the PoF story except to get mounts/unlock masteries. Apparently as noted above, this is no longer mandatory

In general, I often do story for achievement points, especially when the "Living World Return" ones came out.

Edited August 9, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[robintan.4068]

To be honest, I've gotten a bit lazy in terms of doing the story in order, especially for the Living Stories and the Icebrood Saga stories. I only ever did them to unlock the maps, maybe play the intro and a bit of the story, then proceeded to just have fun roaming the maps. Of course it happened again when End of Dragons came, and to this day, I have yet to even get my beefy siege turtle mount because I kind of got lost in the dark and focused more on exploration. The latest example is with What Lies Beneath, Deep Research, and What Lies Within. 

It is not that I dislike the story or anything mind you. It is just that I want to see new places and beat new enemies for their shiny loot and maybe find some weird hidden achievement. It's also probably because I don't have enough time to play like I normally did before and have slowed down a bit.

If you want to play the story from start to finish and actually enjoy it, take the time to go start from the beginning and do all of the stories in order. If you are a more casual player who doesn't really mind doing it in order, that is completely fine too. That's what's fun about this game.

[Kattliadi.1507]

I've been jumping around myself, still alot of content to go.  But myself coming in as a new player to MMO in general...I finished the main story, and then started jumping here and there.  Started HOT just long enough to unlock gliding and then went and did all of POF for the mounts, had alot of fun there - started Living World 4 but got frustrated and tired of all the sand so jumped to EOD and am about to finish up my fishing mastery there.  At which point I'll probably check out SOTO, then either go back to EOD to finish or Living World.  Either way I'm leaving HOT until I've got the skyscale unlocked one way or the other.  Sometimes I just get frustrated with certain mechanics/terrain/story at which point I"ll hop to something else.  Its been very chill and not following the story hasn't hindered me much at all.

[Cale.9861]

must i purchase all the expansions, or can i have vanilla and the latest expansion only?

[Randulf.7614]

31 minutes ago, Cale.9861 said:

must i purchase all the expansions, or can i have vanilla and the latest expansion only?

You can do it however you wish. Just bear in mind, the story is largely continuous so you will feel a bit out of place and you will get spoilers. Plus, you will lack some abilities from older content. You are in no way obstructed from playing whichever expansion you wish though

The new expansion is a new arc though, so it works well enough on its own after core. Just expect a few spoilers. 

[Cale.9861]

thnx Randulf

[mercury ranique.2170]

I totally agree that it is a personal preference . If it matters to you, do it in sequence, if not, feel free to do as you wish, knowing some parts me feel out of order.

Something often forgotten is that maps are tied to events in the story. It is a bit complicated, but worth noting for the personal decission how to handle things.

The base is that all maps are frozen in time. A small spoiler to explain.

 

Spoiler

In the most early maps you'll find an enemy called the risen, they are not in high numbers and just there to set the pace. Later on after their leader launched a full scale attack on the capital, they are seen a lot more and with higher numbers.

So if event A happens in the personal story at level 10, you will not find content for stories that are yet to come in level 10 maps. While in level 50 maps, NPC's will expect you know what happened at level 10, not caring wether or not you did that story part.

To complicate it though, there are exceptations where a badguy from 1331 AE invades a map frozen in time in 1325AE. This is done to promote living world content to the early population, but also means that even when you play in order and stick to maps designed for your level, you can still encounter content from future stories.