Guild Wars 2 - Skritt Concept Art

Those Sneaky, Sneaky Skritt

Hot on the heels of what was easily the coolest MMOG-related April Fools joke this year, today, Ree Soesbee gives us a closer look at a new species in the Guild Wars universe, the skritt. As detailed on the official blog, the skritt are hive-minded creatures that moved to the surface of Tyria as a result of Primordus's awakening. They apparently also have a very long-standing conflict with the asura, who despise the ratlike creatures and have "a rabid belief that all things skritt must be eliminated."

"The skritt are a new species in Guild Wars 2, and their creation came from brainstorms about the effects of Primordus’s awakening. We’d already talked about the asura coming to the surface, but when we started to think about what the underground world must have been like for the asura, we concluded that the asura couldn’t have been alone down there. Other creatures, like the dredge, must also have been affected by the Elder Dragon’s aggression.

"We hadn’t explored the idea of a hive-mind in our world before, but we didn’t want to just repeat the old standard—an insectoid race. We went through many ideas, and eventually settled on the concept of a rattus rattus based horde. A major consideration in their creation was that this race had to challenge the asura on their own terms, but not be just another super-intelligent species. We wanted them to have weaknesses, flaws, and differences—as well as strengths."

Call it what you will, but I really dig the detailed background info for the various NPC races posted on the ArenaNet blog so far. Not only does it give you a greater sense of things you might encounter as you progress through the game, but it also just goes to show how much thought has gone into making Tyria a living, breathing virtual world. And as a pretty major Tyrian lore nerd, I particularly dig hearing about things like the skritt's belief that "life exists simply so that one can have pleasant times and good memories", or how they "seem less intelligent in small groups and more intelligent when they gather in larger ones."

To learn more about the skritt, be sure to hop over to the official ArenaNet blog post, Those Sneaky, Sneaky Skritt.


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Reuben "Sardu" Waters has been writing professionally about the MMOG industry for eight years, and is the current Editor-in-Chief and Director of Development for Ten Ton Hammer.

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