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Guild Wars 2’s first city comes apart at the seams in February 18’s Escape from Lion’s Arch

The Arch: still standing, for now.

Uh oh, fellow Februarians – looks like we’re in for some unsavoury topsy-turvy business in Guild Wars 2’s next living story update. The name alone reveals enough: Lion’s Arch is the outwardly beautiful, slightly empty player capital of Tyria, where all the goodies live. 

So the question is: why would we be wanting to escape from it? And do you think there might be some baddies involved?

The answers: impending death, and yes.

In today’s trailer, the camera zooms low over the water, before pulling up to reveal… that steep hillside where I did some sort of busywork for a starting area questgiver!

Oh, and behind it, Lion’s Arch, still gorgeously angular in that concept art way it has.

The city has survived, variously: the onslaught of the Charr; an undead armada; pirate sabotage; the cataclysm rise of an elder dragon; and a boatload of players on launch day. Now, in the penultimate release of GW2’s current living world story, it’ll come under siege from about half of those threats again, and its pretty spires will come down:

Players last chased the villainous Scarlet to the Edge of the Mists after an update last Tuesday – though our Fraser dubbed it the “bugger off, queues” update because it also brought an end to PvP waiting times. What’s more important to you in a GW2 update? The story stuff, or the features and fixes?