What order to play the story in, when you own several expansions

Buy two expansions at once and the story journal turns into a wall of chapters with no obvious front door. The game does not sort them for you and will happily let you start at the end.

The release order, which is the right one

This is the order the story was written in, and every reference to a previous event assumes it:

1. Personal story, levels 10 to 80
2. Living World Season 1, free for everyone since 2022
3. Living World Season 2
4. Heart of Thorns
5. Living World Season 3
6. Path of Fire
7. Living World Season 4
8. The Icebrood Saga
9. End of Dragons
10. Secrets of the Obscure, then Janthir Wilds, then Visions of Eternity

Notice where the seasons sit. They are not side content between expansions, they are the bridge: Season 3 carries you from Heart of Thorns to Path of Fire, and Season 4 carries you from Path of Fire to End of Dragons (how episodes work).

What happens if you skip

Nothing blocks you. Expansion story opens at level 80 whatever else you have done, and you can start Path of Fire having played none of it.

What you lose is specific rather than vague. The expansions open on characters you were introduced to during a season, in places you visited during a season, resolving a problem set up during a season. The first hour of Path of Fire assumes you know who three people are and why one of them is angry.

So the practical rule for somebody who does not want to play everything:

• Season 1 is optional history. Beautiful, free, and skippable.
• Season 2 is optional and short.
• 🔴 Season 3 and Season 4 are the two that matter. They are the connective tissue, and skipping either makes the following expansion feel like walking in during the second act.
• Icebrood Saga stands apart and can wait.

If you are starting today with everything

The honest schedule most veterans would give a new player:

Play the personal story on one character while you level. Do not rush it and do not skip the dialogue. When you hit 80, go to Heart of Thorns, because it teaches gliding and the maps will make you better at the game than any guide will.

Then Season 3, then Path of Fire for the mounts, and by that point you will have your own opinion about whether you want the rest.

One thing worth knowing before you plan any of it: nothing here expires. The whole sequence will still be sitting in your journal in five years, at the same price, in the same order. The only thing that is ever missable is claiming a new episode for free during its release week, and that is a thirty-second job you can do without playing it (the window).

So there is no wrong order in the sense that matters. There is only an order that makes people make sense, and a set of orders where a stranger you have never met dies dramatically in front of you and the game clearly expects you to feel something.