Guild Wars 2’s Super Adventure Festival Has Come Back

Super Adventure Festival (finally) returned to Guild Wars 2 on March 30, and will remain active until April 20.

Beginning as a “game within a game,” Super Adventure Festival, or Super Adventure Box (SAB) as it’s also known, first appeared in 2013 as an April Fool’s joke, but quickly gained popularity within GW2‘s community.

Using pixelated graphics and “old school,” retro music, the game world starkly contrasts with the traditional Guild Wars 2 experience. Accessible for characters level 10 and up who have reached Rata Sum, regardless if they have the expansion or not, SAB sees players entering its world through the portal at Magustan Court Waypoint.

Here, players travel through two dangerous worlds and various zones — either by themselves or with a party — to save Princess Miya and (perhaps) emerge victorious.

With limited lives, restricted combat, and automatic respawns, SAB can be difficult and frustrating. But it can also be a lot of fun, too. In each unique zone, the player must jump to difficult platforms, dodge projectiles, defeat challenging enemies, avoid hidden traps, and simply figure out where to go in order to collect rewards and complete the world. There is no fall damage, so players can be as daring as they’d like when it comes to exploration. They may even be able to discover hidden rooms. There are checkpoints to save progress along the way and game modes of varying difficulties to suit every player: Infantile (easiest), Normal, and Tribulation (most difficult).

Players must start in World 1 and can only advance to World 2 once they’ve completed World 1, or if they are in a party with a player who has completed World 1. To enter the first world, players must walk to the house numbered 1 in the Super Adventure Hub.

Note: New players should be warned that all buffs will be removed upon entering the world and will not return upon exiting. In addition, SAB progress is character bound, not account bound.

Finding and entering SAB shops in the world can improve the player’s quality of life and add more skill slots. If a player dies too many times, they must spend Continue Coins to advance. If the defeated player does not decide to advance in time, they will be teleported out of the world and back to the Super Adventure Hub.

Moto, the Asuran who invented the vast world, is at Magustan Court Waypoint to trade the earned SAB material — Baubles — for exciting items. New crimson super weapon skins can be collected this year. According to Moto, there have also been a number of bug fixes.

To get the most out of SAB this year, check out Dulfy’s Super Adventure Box 2017 Guide.

SAB took the GW2 community by storm, and it is now sorely missed when it’s gone. Every informed Guild Wars 2 player looks forward to its annual return when April Fools’ Day approaches.