Image: Arenanet & NCSoft

The best time to start playing Guild Wars 2 was back in 2012, when it first launched and was one of the most forward-thinking, high-speed, and thoughtfully designed fantasy MMOs around. The next best time is today. As of a big update yesterday, the game's free trial version (which previously included the entire original retail version of the game) is now joined by the second 'season' of episodic mini-expansions that followed. What this means is that the 'demo' is a 100+ hour epic action RPG, and one I highly recommend.

For returning players, the details are all here. In short, the episodic 'Living World' updates bridging from the end of the original game to the first expansion - Heart of Thorns - are now free for all, and all later seasons are included with their respective expansions. This is a big deal, as that was vital narrative connective tissue, and also contained some of the most interesting zones in the game. Bafflingly, this was not included as standard, and often had to be bought separately at a premium. They've even gone so far as to refund anyone who paid for this content in the past month.

For new players, what this means is that if you start playing for free now, you've got a LOT of game to get through before it's even worth considering picking up an expansion. New, free players get the entire original game that I paid £40 for back in the day, plus a restored version of the first Living World season (which was previously time-limited FOMO bait), and now the excellent second Living World season, which added a couple more hefty regions to explore.

So, why would you want to play a 14-year-old MMO? Because it's a good game that was so ahead of its time that the design (if not the graphics) still feels fresh. When GW2 was new, every other MMO wanted to be World of Warcraft; this one wasn't. It did a lot of stuff differently, starting with faster, more action-oriented combat with dodge rolls and manual aiming. Run out of health, and you enter a Left 4 Dead/Borderlands-esque 'downed' state where another player can quickly pick you up, and anyone can revive the dead.

It also does quests differently, treating most as branching, looping stories that happen in the overworld whether there are players or not. While playing with friends is always better, there's no partying or organization needed - you see a village on fire, you rush in to help, and if a dozen random players do so, then the game smartly scales the encounter up for everyone involved. Once you save the village, you might be asked to join an expedition to counterattack the bandit camp responsible, and then further to whoever was masterminding that, and so on.

One thing that is almost unique to GW2 now is that there's no level treadmill. The main story in the free version will easily get you to the max level of 80, and that's where it ends. The gear you get around that point is as strong as it gets, too. Six expansions later and the stats have not increased even once. While there are some things to grind for, most of the things you can acquire after level 80 are more options and sidegrades, letting you experiment more with your character build.

There's almost never any barrier between you and playing with friends. As the game has full level scaling for lower-tier zones, even a max level player can play with the newbies without destroying any ecosystems, too, and the high-level player gets loot appropriate for their own progression. There's just a lot to love here, and that's not even touching on the massive-scale 'World vs World' PvP mode, which plays like a big 3-way territory-control strategy game, but with human players as the units. Oh, and while they're not introduced until later expansions, GW2 still has some of the best mounts in any MMO.

Guild Wars 2 is free to play on Steam now, with some mild restrictions on what free players can do. While not on the store at the time of writing, a Complete Edition bundle is coming soon that'll include every expansion to date. If you're looking to dig into GW2 properly, our advice is to snap that up when the next sales season rolls round. You'll probably be busy enough with the free version until December anyway.