[Update #2]: Wintersday has only just ended, and already Guild Wars 2 is looking to start the Lunar New Year 2023 festival!

[Update]: Guild Wars 2's late November update rebalanced many underperforming classes with endgame PvE and PvP in mind.

Continuing with their yearly tradition, the Guild Wars 2 team has now unleashed the highly popular Shadow of the Mad King festival. As you would expect from a Halloween update, Shadow of the Mad King has brought with it a variety of cosmetics and decorations to collect, the Mad King's Labyrinth to farm for all sorts of goodies, a nasty yet satisfying jumping puzzle to overcome, and even a couple of achievements to complete on the side if you want extra rewards.

What some of this looks like in action, as well as what sort of atmosphere Shadow of the Mad King is going for, that you can find out through the rather goofy trailer below. Have a little peek:

Even if you're not particularly fond of Halloween, I'd still highly recommend diving into the Mad King's Labyrinth as it's an excellent way of gathering both gold and experience. In order to power-level a brand new character all you have to do is equip a weapon that hits as many enemies as possible in order to tag them for loot, join one of the numerous groups constantly circling the Mad King's Labyrinth, and then attack everything on sight. It doesn't get easier than that!

On a slightly unrelated note, it's also worth mentioning that the Guild Wars 2 team has recently announced the full roadmap for Fall and Winter 2022. The highlights include the return of the final episode of Living World Season 1 in early November, a chunky balance update in late November, as well as the Christmas themed Wintersday event in early December.

Once all of these updates go live I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, have fun smashing spooky, scary skeletons!