Asura

Charr

Human

Norn

The past few days have seen the folks from ArenaNet get busy with teasers for their upcoming title, Guild Wars 2.  Earlier in the week a video was posted for the upcoming vista feature – this feature aids players in map completion whenever they find a vista.  That 38-second video gave us a dazzling glimpse at the graphical quality we can expect from Guild Wars 2, but it’s nothing compared to the three videos added yesterday afternoon to the official ArenaNet YouTube account.

These videos are intro cinematics for three of the five races you can choose from on Guild Wars 2.  The races profiled are as follows – Human, Charr and Norn.   We’re hoping ArenaNet would fill us in on the two other races included, namely the Asura and Sylvari.  The Sylvari race is a new addition to the Guild Wars series, a humanoid race with an affinity to plants.  And if you’d rather read write-ups than watch videos, Arenanet has in-depth profiles of all five races on the official Guild Wars 2 site.

So what’s to expect on these videos?  Well, we believe it would be particularly interesting to see the Charr in action as playable characters.  Just listen to the deep, ominous voice on the Charr’s intro cinematic – these guys are going to be even more bad-ass now that they’re playable.  At this point, it’s best to think of them as anti-heroes – according to ArenaNet, the Charr “have a reason to be angry”, and it should be worth it to see the method behind the madness once Guild Wars 2 hits stores on August 28.

Impressed as we are with the Charr’s cinematic, the two other videos are no slouch either.  We can empathize with the once-mighty Humans, who “once ruled Tyria” but “struggle to hold their ground” 250 years later.  The Norn are gigantic barbarians who can shape-shift into wolves, bears, snow leopards or ravens.  With little more than a month remaining before launch date, Guild Wars 2 promises to be another winning title for ArenaNet.

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