Guild Wars 2 ends Visions of Eternity with Code of Creation

Guild Wars 2 has closed the book on Visions of Eternity. Code of Creation, the expansion’s last quarterly release, went live on 15 September and finishes the story that has been running across Castora, adding the map Leyspring Hollows, six story chapters and a hefty stack of endgame content.

What Code of Creation adds

Beyond the new map and the closing chapters, ArenaNet has added the Solitary Throne fractal, a raid encounter and a convergence both built around the Nexus of Eternity, and a legendary sword called Wages of Stars. The Depths of Cruelty meta-event sends players after the newly crowned Inquest director Kuda and runs on a three-hour cycle rather than the two-hour cadence used elsewhere in the expansion, and the Wizard’s Vault has had its seasonal refresh.

Rift Amplification

The new mastery line, Rift Amplification, is aimed squarely at the rifts players have been chasing across Castora. Rift Tears lets you teleport straight to an active rift from the inactive ones scattered around the map, and Overcharged Rifts lets you push additional power into a rift before the boss appears in exchange for a tougher fight and better rewards. The final two tiers extend both tricks to every rift in Tyria.

Our opinion

There is something refreshing about an expansion that simply ends. ArenaNet has spent the year building to this point, and Code of Creation closes the arc with what players asked for: a proper fractal, a raid encounter, a legendary weapon and a mastery line that makes the game’s existing open-world rifts worth revisiting rather than just adding another zone to tick off. The three-hour meta cycle is a smarter touch than it sounds, because it gives the new map a rhythm players can plan an evening around instead of parking them in one spot. Whether it lands will come down to tuning, but as finales go this one leaves the game in a healthier state than it found it.