Tyria is a world with active illusion magic specialists who can craft spells to make you look like anything you like. Okay, I can hit each point separately but I'll hit all with the collective description. People pulling out their Comfy Cat chairs and spamming my screen with their 'Hello, Kitty!' vibes People using the oversized jade-bot minis, mostly the ugly fat rainbow kitty and the cartoon ghost with its annoying sounds ('Weeee!') Now: people wearing the Special Ops armor, making me feel like I was in a sci-fi ego shooter and not in GW2 People all covered in neon green jade-tech armor Max sized, fat, dark skinned male norn wearing the Maid outfit (racist much?) Max sized, fat, pale skinned male norn wearing the Savage Scale armor I also appreciated that Taimi's communicator, while revolutionary on Tyria, turned out to be quite primitive by Canthan standards. feel strained.Īt least with Cantha, there was a very longstanding issue of Canthan isolation prior to us landing in Seitung and finding out there's this whole line of jade tech the rest of the world had no idea existed. Other games that really try hard to define themselves as one specific theme or another often end up trying to branch out into other themes over time often, this feels like something of a betrayal of the original theme, and in-universe explanations for why this new faction of people (who usually speak the same language and have broadly similar values as everyone else lol) are sporting this brand new technology that nobody else in the history of the civilized world seemed to know anything about. I actually like this mixture, despite the feeling of clash sometimes. This is as far as I'd take any real labeling of GW2's 'theme.' There are clearly elements of many different '-punk' themes, but it's quite clear to me that Anet never wanted to make all of Tyria stick to one predominantly. It's quite unique from other MMOs for sure. It's kind of a mix of steam/solar/cyberpunk. Especially Divinity's Reach, very reminiscent of Piltover. The world of GW2 really reminds me of Riot's show Arcane (quite curious to see how their MMO will be), and I think the same discussion could be brought to that world too.

To some extent it's Schizo Tech, but I think that can (and probably should) happen with any high fantasy setting because there's rarely a required linear progression to technological innovations, and when you add magic to the mix it's even more varied so I actually think it's less realistic for a high fantasy society to exactly mirror any real-life societies development (and note the schizo tech article has an entire section of real-life examples).Ĭonsidering everything in Tyria is ultimately magical I think it still falls under fantasy rather than sci-fi, just one of a growing range of fantasy settings that recognises it doesn't have to be stuck in something loosely resembling the middle ages and time is allowed to pass in fictional worlds as well. use magical power sources and are often constructed using magic as well. Some of it is purely mechanical, but a lot of the more advanced stuff like asuran golems, charr tanks, airships etc. I use magitech as a generic name for the technology we see.

Also the -punk genres usually imply some degree of dystopia (even solarpunk, which is often more optimistic, it's often also post-apocalyptic and/or centred on social issues) and while Tyria has more than it's fair share of issues, social as well as supernatural, I wouldn't call it a dystopia. That can apply to some parts of GW2, but a lot of the technology is not steam based and not even using the same aesthetics. Steampunk specifically referes to steam powered technology, and usually an Industrial Revolution/Georgian/Victorian aesthetic to go along with it.

Steam punk wars