Guild Wars Utopia

Guild Wars Utopia is the name of the cancelled campaign four, which was later adapted into Eye of the North. Its release date was expected to be April 2007. It first came to the attention of the community in April 2006, when a domain name and a trademark from June 2006 were found. An NCsoft employee referred to it as a "cancelled project" at the time, prior to the announcement of Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2. Since then, it has been confirmed that it was, in fact, campaign four in the PC Gamer Ultimate Guild Wars Guide. A small amount of information was also made available from the aforementioned guide. Some more information can be inferred from this thread, which is filled with concept art, some from the cancelled Utopia.

Production
Production is known to have been "well underway" in May 2006, continued to at least July 2006, and have been cancelled in or before January 2007. Given the fact that the team would have had a lot less time to develop Eye of the North than other campaigns, it's likely that parts of Utopia were adapted into Eye of the North, such as areas, towns, outposts, heroes and NPCs.

Features


Nothing is known about the features of Utopia, however, horses, giant beetles and other mounts are featured heavily in artwork for the cancelled campaign. It's possible that these were a planned feature, or part of a planned profession for C4, but for whatever reason were not implemented. Mounts may, in fact, be one of the "exciting new features" the ArenaNet team wished to implement, but couldn't due to technical or time constraints, or the fact that it wouldn't work with what they had done previously.

Professions
Chronomancers and Summoners were two of the proposed player professions for Utopia. This forum post contains many images of the class "Chronomancer", which is traditionally, in fantasy games, a time mage. Other concept art, some very recent, and some dating back even to before Nightfall depicts men and women with a range of weapons, including maces, dual-wielded spears, javelins, halberds, dual-handed swords and dual-wielded axes.

Setting


Just as Nightfall had an African theme, and Factions had an Asian theme, Utopia was to have an Aztec theme. Concept art depicts bustling marketplaces, a giant arena, pyramids, temples, ancient ruins, underground caves, volcanoes, totem poles, bridges (both stone and rope) and massive waterfalls. It's likely that some of this - presumably already implemented - content was moved into Eye of the North in the forms of the Tarnished Coast and the Depths of Tyria. As there was an Hourglass Staff in the Eye of the North pre-release pack, and images of something called a "Chronomancer", we can also assume that technology would have been important (note the time-related connotations of an hourglass). The equivalent of technology and an Aztec theme in Eye of the North would be the Tarnished Coast and the Asura race.

Storyline
As with the professions and features, no information has been released on the storyline for Utopia. However, once again, some inconclusive information can be inferred from concept art. It is difficult to distinguish between the concept art for Utopia ideas, Eye of the North ideas that were scrapped, or Utopia ideas that were implemented into Eye of the North, so looking through the concept art for storyline information leaves much to interpretation. This section should be taken with a grain of salt, as the information herein reflects the interpretations of the writer.

Although the PC Gamer articles heavily implies that the plans for Utopia were scrapped and the initial plan for GW2 were started at the same time, there is a possibility that this is not the case, and Utopia, not Eye of the North was intended to be a bridge to GW2. Indeed, it is known that multiple races were intended to be introduced in Utopia, such as the Sidhe (which later became the concept for the Sylvari).

The plot of Utopia seems to have focused on the ruins of some earlier civilization. The Asuran constructs known as golems seem to feature in artwork in multiple different forms. Many depict the golems as - contrary to the existing image of shiny, almost modern constructs - older looking, more statue-like beings. They are also depicted as being a fairly old technology, with one piece of art showing a deactivated golem overgrown with plants and weeds. In any case, it can be assumed that they played a fairly large part in Utopia. It is not known whether their creators, the Asura, were also featured in the game.

Destroyers were also possibly featured in Utopia, albeit not as we know them. Early concept art for "Taneks", "Tanecks" or "Tanneks" (the actual spelling is unknown) feature fleshy, piglike creatures. Later concept art, also entitled tannek.jpg or something similar features the Destroyers as we know them. It's probable that the name was changed to "Destroyer" sometime after the game was adapted to become Eye of the North (if, indeed, the Destroyers were featured in Utopia) to promote the notion that they were literally mindless creatures. Interestingly, art exists of a sort of hybrid between the old, fleshy Tanneks and the new fiery Destroyers here.

Also featured in artwork are wizards with fiery skulls, with the ability to possess their foes. Nothing more is known about them.

Trivia

 * In his palace, Prince Mehtu the Wise tells the player about some artifacts from an ancient civilization recovered at the west coast. It may have been intentional foreshadowing to the new continent of Guild Wars Utopia.
 * Interestingly, "utopia" is Greek for "No Place" or "True/Good Place" depending on how you spell it ("Eutopia" is also a valid spelling for the word). It could also be interpreted as "unseen", which, in turn, points to the Mursaat.
 * Utopia is a term to describe a society with no crime, violence, etc. The term was first coined by the English Renaissance author Sir Thomas More.