Hey, everyone! Matt Pennebaker here, with Mike O’Brien joining me, to talk about the new legendary weapon that came out today, why we suspended them in the first place, and the decision to move forward with them in this direction.

It was a tough decision to suspend work on legendary weapons. We did it because we wanted to put all our energy into creating new content for the game. The old legendary journeys took months to design, write, implement, and test, and they were one of a set of things that was keeping us busy on something other than creating content for everyone.

But even after suspending work on them, the discussion about legendary weapons never stopped on our side. Some players viewed “suspended indefinitely” as code words for “canceled,” but for us, it was more of a time-out while we worked to find a different solution. We wanted to find a way to deliver legendaries without hurting content development to do it. And that led us to this new method of obtaining legendary weapons going forward.

Let’s be straight that the new system lacks a lot of the story and lore of the old legendary journeys. But legendary journeys didn’t need to be that complicated. They were a solution to a simple problem: it was impossible to work toward a precursor. You either had one or you didn’t, and only a lucky roll (or a ton of gold) could get you there. The system of legendary journeys we created to overcome this was very deep and immersive, but they were also very time consuming to make. So we set out to make an alternative method of obtaining a precursor with the following objectives:

Legendary weapons should never be hampered by design implementation time. Of course our art team puts a lot of effort and creativity into each new weapon, but having created the art, we should be able to put it into the game in a matter of days.

The new system should be balanced with existing legendary weapons. Obtaining a legendary weapon is a show of effort and commitment to Guild Wars 2, and we don’t want to undercut the value of older weapons that people have or are working toward.

It should give a way to make progress toward your precursor every time you play. It’s important to know how far you are from your goal and to see that you’re closing in on it when you put effort toward the goal.

With these objectives, we created a new, streamlined system that allowed us to deliver the new legendary Eureka with the second episode of Living World Season 3, Rising Flames, and will allow us to continue delivering new weapons until we complete the set.

For those of you who haven’t seen the new system, here’s a brief rundown of how it works:

When a new legendary weapon becomes available, speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to purchase the first-tier precursor recipe.

With the recipe unlocked, play in any Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ map to purchase the new, weapon-specific material with that map’s currency (including Unbound Magic).

Refine the new material and use it to craft the first-tier precursor.

Return to Hobbs and repeat this process for the second- and third-tier precursors.

Use the final precursor in the Mystic Forge, with a recipe very similar to the other Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns legendary weapons, to craft your new legendary weapon.

Thank you for your patience with us while we worked on this issue and for your continued support of Guild Wars 2. On a personal note, it’s been very exciting to be working on legendary weapons again, and when you see what our artists have in store, I think you’ll be excited too.