Guides/Story and translations
The Icebrood Saga: the season that introduced strike missions
Grothmar, Bjora Marches, Drizzlewood Coast and the Champions chapters. What the saga added to the game, how it ends, and why it sits apart from the other seasons.
On this page
The Icebrood Saga is the season that sits slightly apart from the others. It is the fifth in the sequence, it does not bridge two expansions the way Season 3 and Season 4 do, and its lasting contribution is a game mode rather than a story beat.
The episodes and their maps
- Prologue: Bound by Blood → Grothmar Valley
- Whisper in the Dark → Bjora Marches
- Shadow in the Ice → Bjora Marches, expanded
- Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire → no new map
- No Quarter → Drizzlewood Coast
- Jormag Rising → Drizzlewood Coast, expanded
- Champions, in four chapters → no new maps
Three map regions across seven releases, with two of them expanded rather than replaced. That structure was new for this game and has been used since.
What it added that lasted
🔴 Strike missions. Instanced content for 1 to 10 players, deliberately positioned between the open world and raids in difficulty. They exist because raids had a reputation problem and a large part of the playerbase would never see that kind of content without a gentler on-ramp.
That worked. Strikes are now the standard entry point to organised group play, and every expansion since has shipped them.
Dragon Response Missions are the smaller sibling: 1 to 5 players, with optional challenge modes.
What the story does
You chase Blood Imperator Bangar north into the ice. Jormag, the Elder Dragon of ice, wakes up and turns both Bangar and Ryland into its own, which is the part that gives the saga its emotional weight.
It ends with Jormag and Primordus destroying each other, which closes a plot thread the game had been carrying since 2012.
What it is worth now
Drizzlewood Coast is the reason to go even if the story does not interest you. Its meta is one of the better paying loops in the game for the time it takes, and it stayed popular for years after release.
Grothmar Valley is worth one visit for the concert, which is a sentence that makes no sense until you have been there.
And if you are working through the release order and running out of enthusiasm, this is the season it is most acceptable to leave for later. It resolves its own thread, it does not set up the expansion that follows it, and nothing in End of Dragons opens on a character you met here.
Questions people ask
What did the Icebrood Saga add to Guild Wars 2?
Strike missions, which are 1 to 10 player instances sitting between open world and raids in difficulty, plus Dragon Response Missions for 1 to 5 players.
Which maps does the Icebrood Saga add?
Grothmar Valley, Bjora Marches across two episodes, and Drizzlewood Coast across two episodes. The Champions chapters added no new maps.
Do I need Path of Fire for the Icebrood Saga?
Yes. Like Season 4, the Icebrood Saga episodes require Path of Fire.
Can I skip the Icebrood Saga?
It stands more apart than Season 3 or 4, so skipping it costs you less narratively. Drizzlewood Coast is still one of the better reward maps in the game.