A new ad from Guild Wars 2 pokes fun at one of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s flagship features. In the new commercial, Guild Wars 2 shows off its own dynamic dragon riding system, which it has had for years before World of Warcraft even announced Dragonflight.
Guild Wars 2 introduced mounts in its second expansion, Path of Fire, back in 2017. Since then, Guild Wars 2 has added nearly a dozen mounts, each with unique movement abilities and skills to navigate the world. Guild Wars 2 has two flying mounts: the Griffon and the dragon-like Skyscale. Each of them works on different physics, with the former acting like a high-speed glider, and the latter offering more precise height control.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is introducing the Dragonriding mechanic. This new form of flying allows players to take their customizable dragon mounts into the skies of the Dragon Isles with reactive physics, special maneuvers, and a Vigor meter. Guild Wars 2 couldn’t help but notice the similarities between World of Warcraft’s new flying system and its existing ones. During one of its recent ads, Guild Wars 2 asked “Why wait to ride a dragon?” in an obvious attempt at targeting WoW players.
Guild Wars 2’s assertion as having “the best mounts in MMOs” is well-earned. Each of its mounts has special abilities to traverse the world in unique ways. Like Dragonriding in Dragonflight, unlocking improvements for mounts is a part of the endgame progression. Guild Wars 2 mounts even have special combat abilities to engage enemies.
Fans of Guild Wars 2 got a kick out of ArenaNet’s new ad. When World of Warcraft first revealed Dragonriding, players also noticed the similarities with Guild Wars 2’s flying system. From the more than 600 comments about the ad in just a few days, players clearly enjoyed Guild Wars 2’s dig at its competitor.
However, some fans couldn’t help but notice Guild Wars 2’s ad didn’t mention just how hard unlocking the Griffon and Skyscale mounts is. Both mounts require one to hit max level, beat the Path of Fire story, and complete complex collection achievements. The Skyscale is especially notorious–it requires access to every Living World Season 4 zone, and takes a minimum of three days for the dedicated, but two or more weeks for most players. Considering Dragonriding is unlocked for free almost immediately after arriving at the Dragon Isles, players may technically have to wait longer to ride a dragon if they start playing Guild Wars 2 now than if they wait until World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's launch.
Guild Wars 2 is available for PC.