Guild Wars 2’s Sylvari detailed in new video

Guild Wars, albeit fun and popular, played it fairly safe. Everything was instanced, players could only be human, and there wasn’t an open world to explore. With Guild Wars 2, every single stigma associated with the Guild Wars name is being blown apart, and AreaNet is creating something absolutely colossal. One of the major changes between the first and second game is the addition of multiple races, and in a video released today, the developers are showing off Guild Wars’ take on elves: Sylvari.

But just because they began their lives in the Guild Wars universe as elf-like creatures doesn’t mean that you should expect to see “painted humans with pointy ears” hopping through the forest. Since their inception in the early stages in the game, AreaNet’s artists have evolved the Sylvari into something more original. Check out the video below to see what beautiful abominations they’ve become.

It’s great to see some innovation when it comes to character design in an MMO. We’re used to playing as the same archetypical races in every game to feature swords and sorcery, but the Sylvari are different. They’ve literally blossom from the trees, and look unlike anything we’ve seen before in an MMO—or, for that matter, in a fantasy game.

Every part of the Sylvari looks grown, not born, from their vine-like extremities to their leafy eyebrows. ArenaNet claims that it’s something completely unique, and while we’re sure that someone has written something about a humanoid plant race at some point in the past (in fact, we’re pretty sure that there was a Darkwing Duck villain that fits this description), it’s certainly something different when it comes to video games. Some of the Sylvari in the video look absolutely alien, and we can’t wait play with character creation sliders to make our own when the game comes out later this year.

Aug 10, 2011