Guild Wars 2 is slated to get its first expansion, Heart of Thorns, some time soon, and one of the things that the expansion will be adding to the hit MMORPG is a brand new class (or profession, in the game’s own parlance). It’s called the ‘Revenant,’ and it sounds pretty interesting.

“We talked a lot about where we’d been going with Guild Wars 2’s professions,” said ArenaNet game design lead Jon Peters to Polygon. “We were moving further and further away from Guild Wars 1. We looked at our whole set of eight professions and tried to figure out what archetype was missing. It took us back into our past. We started looking backward at the first game.”

This will play into gameplay as a mechanic where you channel the power of heroes and notable figures from the first Guild Wars game, all of which are important historical and legendary figures in this game’s lore. A hero from the first game, whom the Revenant will channel, will show up as the right half of your skill bar- the benefit being that theoretically, you can use a skill on your left hand side, and then switch to the right hand side, channel a hero from the past, and use a similar skill that that hero may have had without suffering any kind of cooldown penalty.

“Legends were designed as packages of skills for very specific playstyles,” says ArenaNet game designer Roy Cronacher. “One legend might be focused being tanky, while another is focused around conditions. The idea is that you bring this package of skills that has a themed playstyle. You make that choice of whether you want to be an offensive-style character or do you want to use conditions or do you want to be a tank or do you want to do support. By having two legends equipped, it allows you to mix and match these playstyles and build a hybrid role.”

So, it sounds like it’s a pretty interesting and differentiated class, and it should be something that all Guild Wars 2 players will be looking at. How about you? Does this sound like something that would interest you?

It’s very hard to be a fan of MMORPGs these days, and not have heard of NCSoft. You almost certainly know of them- these are the people who’re the publishers of such genre defining and leading games as Lineage, Guild Wars, and this year’s much hyped (but ultimately irrelevant) Wildstar.

Today, they announced a significant restructuring of their western operations, which entails a large number of layoffs. Predictably, developers of Wildstar Carbine are the ones most affected by this restructuring, while Guild Wars developer ArenaNet is entirely excluded from it.

NCSoft does reiterate, however, that it remains committed to the game, same as it remains committed to its other intellectual properties. “Moving forward, we will continue to focus on our core development capabilities and the intellectual properties (WildStar, Aion, Lineage, and Guild Wars franchises) that have made NCSoft what it is today. However, we are looking to move into new business segments like mobile and tablet games as well as explore emerging technologies,” they said in their press release.

Hopefully, the people affected by these lay-offs can get back on their feet soon.

Guild Wars Beyond continues with the second chapter of Winds of Change, the largest free content expansion in Guild Wars to date. This release sees the addition of 11 more quests, 5 respawned zones, and numerous hidden scenes for players looking to experience the story to the fullest.

Guild Wars Beyond continues with the second chapter of Winds of Change, the largest free content expansion in Guild Wars to date. This release sees the addition of 11 more quests, 5 respawned zones, and numerous hidden scenes for players looking to experience the story to the fullest.