Recently, Guild Wars 2 developers announced underwater combat and battle in a truly 3D environment. In a new column debuting today on MMORPG, David North talks about underwater combat as an example of how Arena.Net uses environments to tell the story, making it less a theme park and more something completely different.
Expanding environments into an underwater setting is a pretty big step up from the first game. Another very important step that ArenaNet has made in the past for the first game is still being used now only it has been brought to the next level. ArenaNet seems to have noticed that piecing together a good looking environment is like creating a piece of art. And that is exactly how they treat it; so much so, that the concept art literally becomes the environment.