A Guild Wars 2 update, scheduled for 10 March will be adding all manner of different camera tweaks and options to the game. These include a first-person mode, a Field of View (FOV) slider and a couple of others.
The first-person POV mode is said to be “unrestricted” and can be used anywhere, during pretty much any activity (“standing in place, walking, running, jumping, playing PvP” are all listed.) So now you’ll be able to play Guild Wars 2 through the eyes of your character, in case you’re tired of staring at their back.
Hand-in-hand with the first-person option is, happily, an FOV slider. A narrow or low FOV can often give people motion sickness or headaches (particularly when in first-person.) It’s not mentioned what the upper and lower values of the slider will be, but hopefully it’s fairly wide-ranging. If want to know more about why FOV is important, I wrote a short piece about it over here.
Alongside those two features, Arenanet will be adding a ‘Position Slider.’ With this, you’ll be able to alter horizontal and vertical camera perimeters; allowing for things like an over-the-shoulder third person view, or some kind of slightly strange “being stalked by a bird” angle.
Post-update, the camera in Guild Wars 2 will default to focusing on a character’s head. This means taller players should actually have a sense of height. However, if you don’t actually like this effect there will be a “height toggle” that drops the camera to a standard position.
A Twitch livestream on 27 February at 8pm GMT (Noon US Pacific) will show all of this off, so have a watch of that if you’re interested in seeing it before 10 March.
