Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire is finally upon us, bringing a massive influx of new content and story to the land of Kryta. But is the addition of new areas, additional story chapters, mounts and elite specializations enough to make the latest expansion worth it for established players? The short answer is "yes," and the long answer is coming right after the cut.

Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (hereafter GW2:PoF) takes place after the final events of Heart of Thorns. One of the human gods – the god of War – has finally revealed himself after hundreds of years of silence. Rather than returning to inspire his human devoted, however, he seems hellbent on acquiring power for himself, even if it means bringing harm to the world of which he's supposed to be a partial caretaker. With his forces amassing in the Crystal Desert, it's up to the heroes of the world to put a stop to his mad plans.

With all this world-threatening calamity, however, comes a whole lot of fresh content for players to enjoy. On paper, the new additions are considerable: a brand new mount system, a new elite specialization for each of the nine professions in the game, five new open world maps to explore and quest in, new quest chains and equipment sets, and a whole lot more. Of all of this, the mount system is the freshest introduction: five distinct mounts that are tied in with the mastery system (which was broadly introduced with Heart of Thorns), and which offer distinctly different types of mobility to get around in the world. The mounts not only offer new ways to explore the world, but they actually are necessary to explore certain sections of the new areas in the expansion. It's not only a nice addition to the game, but it's good to see that the developers decided to put their own spin on the system, rather than just blandly introducing 'beasts you can ride places' that were otherwise identical to mounts in other MMOs.

The Elite Specializations are a great touch as well, and my personal favorite addition to the game. When it comes to games, I'm a mechanics junkie: I love trying out a new profession and finding out how it compares to the rest, and what individual contributions it can make to any conflict or raid. With GW2:PoF, the Elite Specializations I tried out (particularly the Necromancer Scourge) felt truly fresh compared to how the profession normally performed, as well as compared to the already released elite professions. These elites require learning a new style of play, complete with picking up a weapon that generally feels alien for the profession in question (axe for mesmer, torch for necromancer, and so on). I can't testify as to whether these are all appropriately balanced against each other, but I had fun learning how to play the same character in a 'new' way, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

One thing I noticed with the new content, however, is the feeling of a certain amount of 'same'-ness compared to the previous Guild Wars 2 experiences I've had. When I picked up GW2:PoF, it had been a long time since I last left, during the Heart of Thorns expansion. But before long, certain things were familiar to me: the areas with 'heart quests' that required running around and performing some fairly repetitive tasks in order to 'complete' the area. Guild Wars 2 has always been a game with an emphasis on completionist tasks: exploring every single nook and cranny of the world, finding every vista, and so on. For me, after having faced down massive dragons and world-threatening calamities, having to run around and help out with glorified farm chores seems like a bit of a drag. This is a problem which has long plagued MMOs – the "being level 80 and killing a purple version of what you killed at level 1" experience – and even though it's somewhat different in GW2:PoF, the end result feels the same.

Speaking of sameness, there's another issue I had with this expansion: the graphics. This is a tough one to really complain about, because the fact is that the game still looks gorgeous at times. Purely on an environmental level, the varied architecture and outdoor sights throughout the new areas can be breathtaking to behold, as can the sheer presence of some of the larger enemies. But once you start to get nice and close to the enemies – once you develop an eye for detail – a bit of the graphical age of the game starts to become apparent. It's probably enhanced in part by at least some of that all-too-familiar experience with some of the exploration and questing parts of the game, but it's something which started to nag at me. A sense of overfamiliarity with the game's graphics, on its own, is no big deal. But when both the graphics and the content seem "solid, but expected",