Guild Wars 2 celebrating Queen’s Jubilee in August

Well, isn’t that lovely? Divinity’s Reach is about to celebrate ten years of Queen Jennah’s rule, and you’re invited to the party! As long as you have a copy of Guild Wars 2, anyway.

The Queen’s Jubilee is the next free content update for Guild Wars 2, adding in a bunch of new bits and bobs as of 6 August. There’ll be an opening ceremony for you to catch, Beacons of Kryta to light, a gladiatorial arena – the Crown Pavilion – for you to battle through (for the chance to be named champion of a nation, and for access to special vendors) and there’s the Queen’s Gauntlet for you to challenge. The latter offers “increasingly difficult challenges of single-combat against unique bosses,” which sounds a bit nasty. And if Divinity’s Reach is a bit far for you to travel, don’t worry – there’ll be hot-air balloons all over the place, just waiting to take you there.

Rewards encompass Watchwork Mechanisms, with Watchwork parts used as currency in the Crown Pavilion and as crafting parts for new recipes, and completing the Queen’s Jubilee meta-achievement will net you miniature Watchknight.

And, obviously, there are new features. There’s a wallet holding every form of currency you have and making it available to all characters on your account, there’s a solo queue for the PvP Arena, there are daily bonus rewards every time you complete a unique path in a dungeon, there’s an extra bag of loot on offer from champions, there’s the Cutthroat Politics mini-game rotation system, there’s an improved level of detail system that will reduce the details of effects when lots are happening at once (to keep things visible), there are permanent finishers for PvP and WvW, there’s a Supply Master ability line for WvW…

Queen’s Jubilee will go live on 6 August, and you can check out the details here. If you’re still playing Guild Wars 2, it sounds like it’ll be worth a visit.