Guild Wars 2 Game Director Colin Johanson Departs; ArenaNet President Mike O'Brien To Take His Place

By Jason Winter, News Editor Posted: March 4, 2016

One of the most well-known faces at ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 Game Director Colin Johanson, has left the company. ArenaNet President Mike O'Brien -- who'll be taking over Johanson's role and looking to hire a replacement for himself -- broke the news on Reddit earlier today, while also kicking off an AMA and letting folks in on some of the happenings with the company.

While there were no exact details on why Johanson left the company, O'Brien did state that he departed "on good terms," while reminding players that there were still a goodly number of people dedicated to working on the game. In particular, he points out that, unlike in previous situations, there's a split between employees working on live content and working on future expansions. There's a big quarterly update planned for April, which will focus on reducing grind and improving rewards, which O'Brien calls a "back-to-our-roots kind of update."

While O'Brien does promise to be more "visible with the changes we're making" to World vs. World, he cautions against players getting too hyped up about when upcoming features will ship -- or even if they'll ship at all.

So if you ask us for a list of things that will ship in April, we’ll probably be coy because we think it’s nice for you to have presents to unwrap on release day, but more than that, the truth is we don’t even know. We’re working on a lot of potentially great improvements for April, all themed in the direction of less grind and more rewards, and they won’t all make the cut, but any reasonable subset will make a great release.

As a long-time Guild Wars 2 player, I wish Colin Johanson the best of luck in his next endeavor, and look forward to a new direction for Guild Wars 2!

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In this article: Ncsoft, Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet.

About the Author

Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Ravors 9 years ago

First of all, the base players.. people like myself. I played gw2 for the pve contentent and the awesome world events. thats what made the game fun and unique. I loved going out to the world and chase a giant bam with 100 other players. it was fun. hundreds of players on a bad ass mob getttign the shit kicked out of us. WvW was just there as an extra.. I dont want to dungeon raid today or feel like chasing mats for legendary gear. let me go pvp and get a simple reward or gain an acheivement point. .....

they should have made more dungeons and upgraded the dynamic events.... i dont give a shit about pvp and that was not my reason for purchasing the game.

grimsbane 9 years ago

Its a shame to see another big shot go, first you had the lead wvw designer leave after having issues with some of decisions that were made without him being present. Now you have a Game director leaving and not isn't the first one of other employees who have left the company it almost seems like they are making poor decisions left and right and, that there getting fed up. But back to the WvW thing Anet needs to wake up otherwise there going to be heading towards a dead game mode you have alot of WvW players saying, this "BIG Overhaul" better put the WvW back into WvW or there moving onto a new game with gvg like content.