Let's Review — Janthir Wilds: Absolution (Guild Wars 2)

The third and final major update to Guild Wars 2's fifth expansion, Janthir Wilds, finally released a few days ago, titled "Absolution". The community's reaction has been almost entirely negative, but is it really all bad? I'm here to give the release a proper review and share my thoughts and analysis.

This article will contain major spoilers for the new story, the new map, and other additions in the new update, so be warned.

Story

While we spent the previous release, Repentance, unable to break through the barrier separating us from Bava Nisos, Absolution kicks right into the action. Livia steals the Scepter of Orr and brute-forces her way through the barrier. This makes every other character very upset, but we charge into the city nonetheless, where we're immediately met with the first of two major twists in this release: the fourth titan, Saevus Saxum, is so old and so massive that it has physically merged with the city itself.

Characters

The main cast of this release is mostly the same as Repentance. We're still accompanied by Pokey, Waiting Sorrow, Anise, and Isgarren, but Livia joins the fray as well. It's with her portrayal that my mixed feelings on this release begin.

Livia betrays the rest of the cast's trust by stealing Legavo from the Wizard's Vault and using it to force open Bava Nisos. Even so, it feels like the other characters' reactions, especially after Livia is proven right, are overblown. There is never a moment where anyone explains why Livia's actions are wrong; instead, they mainly just insult her over and over. All the player really has to work with is the established idea from previous Alliance meetings that using Legavo is "risky", but Livia clearly understands the Scepter better than anyone else and is confident that it will work fine; she's proven to be completely correct, and I'm unsure why none of the other characters really acknowledge that.

Furthermore, the general disdain for Livia extends well beyond the first instance. In the second story step, which takes place after the meta, Livia is attempting to destroy Saevus's heart with the Scepter. She calls us in for backup, and once again all the other characters lay into her for her "foolishness". It's here where it seems like the characters cease to be upset with her for an actual reason and instead transition into simply being upset because the writers want them to be; once the shadow creatures appear, everyone goes from accosting Livia for trying to use the Scepter again to accosting her for not having already done it. The moment feels very clunky and disingenuous, and it honestly discredits the other characters. Their consistent treatment of Livia throughout this release borders on uncomfortable, and it certainly does them no favors.

Tangentially related to the Livia situation, the character writing in this release felt uncharacteristically poor for GW2's standards. There were a number of cases of odd non-sequiturs in the conversations—cases where one line of dialogue simply didn't lead at all into the line that followed it. This community loves to call any content they dislike "rushed" or even "unfinished", but this is the first time in GW2's story I've ever genuinely felt like I was reading a first draft.

The cast's treatment of Livia aside, it was interesting to see some characters like Anise, who are usually very proper and composed, at a low point. This release did a lot to humanize Anise in particular, showing us her love-hate relationship with Livia, her temperament, and a bit of her backstory, being a childhood friend of Jennah's.

While their involvement in the story is minimal, two more major characters join us for the new meta-event: Councillor Ludo and a new character, Bengt Tovasson. The former is one of the most interesting members of the Alliance, in my opinion, so it was nice seeing more of her in a different circumstance; Bengt is also a fun character, though there is some confusion around him. He's a member of the Mesmer Collective, but also claims to be the Havroun of Raven. There can only be one Havroun per Spirit, which either means the writers made a mistake, Bengt is lying, or Havroun Weibe died off-screen at some point after IBS.

Finally, let's talk about Mabon and Saevus Saxum. In Repentance, Mabon rejoined the story in the form of memories stored in the bloodstone around Mistburned Barrens; we view a final memory revealing that Saevus was the last surviving titan after the Mursaat were wiped out. Mabon encountered it and took pity on it, viewing it as a kindred spirit—both the last of their kind. He spared Saevus and sealed it in Bava Nisos, expecting it to retreat back through the Mists Gate and hoping it might turn over a new leaf, same as he. Instead, Saevus remained in Bava Nisos, awaiting Mabon's return; in that time, it merged with the city and eventually lured the three White Mantle cultists inside to twist them into the new titans Ura, Greer, and Decima.

That paragraph summarizes all of the characterization Saevus receives throughout the story. In its current state, it isn't so much a character as a living plot device; to my knowledge, it doesn't have a single line of dialogue beyond a "(roar)", and I don't think its name is ever even said out loud. I've seen many players raise complaints about this fact; I don't particularly see it as an issue. Saevus doesn't need to be much more of a character than he is to fill his role in the story, though the operating word there is "much".

If there is one thing I think Saevus is missing, it's a motivation. We have a basic backstory for why and how he is in Bava Nisos, and we have his plan to create the new titans. What's left unclear is why he created the titans in the first place. We never get any real insight into his motivation, which is just a liiittle important given he's ultimately responsible for the main conflict of this expansion.

As for Mabon, I have mixed feelings. His inclusion in JW seems to be at least partially in response to criticisms of SotO regarding his wasted potential there. I felt the echoes of his memories we saw in Repentance, and the one here in Absolution, did an incredible job of expanding on his character in a natural way while also providing context for the story. His "living" ghost form in Absolution, on the other hand, feels a lot clunkier to me. He kind of just shows up, explains the solution to our problem, then leaves. They don't do much with his character after his reappearance; he really serves no purpose beyond solving the plot for us, and it's a role that could have easily been filled by another character. In short, his appearance here feels somewhat pointless and wasted.

Plot

We covered most of this release's plot in the previous section, but let's go over a quick summary to catch the parts we missed. After the opening instance, where we enter Bava Nisos and everyone gets mad at Livia, the story transitions right into the "A Titanic Voyage" meta-event. 

In the meta, Livia, Ludo, and Bengt lead Alliance forces in an assault on Bava Nisos. Along the way, they slay a Ghost amalgamation, Lextalion, which was formed by the vengeful souls of those sacrificed in Bava Nisos. The forces are successful in destroying several of Saevus's vital organs, but they learn that this is only a temporary measure. Saevus is tethered to the Mists Portal within it, and will simply regenerate unless the portal is closed.

At the end of one Alliance raid on Saevus, Livia calls in the Commander and co. as backup as she's planning to forcefully close the Mists Gate using Legavo. The others warn her against this, but the argument is interrupted as shadow creatures emerge from the Gate. We learn these creatures resist Legavo's effects—a Chekhov's Gun that never gets fired—and fight them off until Mabon's spirit—not a memory, likes the ones we'd viewed previously, but an actual version of him—emerges from the Gate and seals it.

Mabon proceeds to explain that the three White Mantle cultists sent by Caudecus—Ulrich, Tatyanna, and Judge—were lured into the Mists Gate by Saevus, where their souls merged with demons and they were eventually twisted into the titans Greer, Decima, and Ura. They reside in the Foundry of Failed Creations beyond the Mists Gate, and Mabon explains that they are tethered to it just as himself and Saevus are. Before we can close it, we must release their souls from the Realm of Torment by using touchstones—objects left behind in Tyria that have special significance to the three.

One fetch quest later, we return to Mabon with the touchstones and enter the Mists Gate, where we fight through a few shadow creatures before encountering the cultist trio. We face them in combat and release each of their souls, but that is only the first step. Closing the Mists Gate requires an immense amount of energy, forcing Livia to give up Legavo, which is destroyed in the process. With the Gate closed, Saevus dies off-screen and we're off to Lion's Arch to give our report and celebrate a job well done.

I've already aired out my criticisms of the character writing throughout this release, but what about the plot? On the surface, it functions fine: it's well-paced, with us breaking into Bava Nisos, figuring out the mystery, and then solving the problem. I really like the reveal that Saevus merged with the city, and I also like that the cultist trio became the other titans. 

Narratively, I think ending the story by putting to rest the souls of the enemies we'd been fighting all along is actually very satisfying. Many players—myself included—were operating under the assumption that the writers have been preparing a sort of "Wizard's Saga"; we expected JW to end with the dramatic reveal of some new villain as the mastermind, who we would then face throughout the next expansion. Instead, the expansion's story ended up being almost entirely self-contained; I think the simple fact that the story took a different path than expected has amplified many players' negative feelings on it. I think this is a perfectly fine way to end the expansion, and in retrospect, I'm kind of glad the team is committing to these new-model expansions being more self-contained; even so, I have plenty of criticisms of my own for this finale. In particular, I think it failed to provide gameplay befitting a finale, and I think the narrative begins to fall apart the more you look into the details.

First, let's consider the gameplay. By far the most common critique I have seen of the finale is that it is underwhelming, and I completely agree with that assessment. The Foundry of Failed Creations instance is very short, and it just has us face a few sets of shadow creatures and the three human spirits at the end. Each of them have a couple different attacks, but the fight is overall very short and easy. More important than that, however, is that the encounter is completely lacking in spectacle. There are no dramatic or memorable moments, no impressive attacks, no points where it feels like the enemy have the upper hand; rather than a dramatic showdown against a final boss, it ends up feeling like bullying a couple of pathetic weaklings.

For all its flaws, SotO provides a great example of how to properly create a final encounter that feels impactful. The Citadel of Zakiros is a decently lengthy dungeon, which lends Eparch some proper build-up. The instance contains the twist reveal that Eparch ate his army in preparation for our arrival, and there's a point where his few remaining minions stop fighting entirely; he lets us into the throne room because he's confident he'll win. The battle starts with him executing one of his generals right in front of us, and his fight features some completely unique mechanics that help to make him feel important. Partway through, he manages to get us on the ropes before Isgarren arrives to turn things back in our favor. For all Eparch lacked as a character, and for as much as SotO suffered from clearly being rushed, that final instance put in a lot of effort to make SotO's finale feel climactic and important; none of that is present in Salvation's Cost.

Aside from the anticlimactic gameplay, Absolution suffers from a lot of plot holes and missing details. We've already gone over some of these, such as Bengt claiming to be the Raven Havroun and Saevus lacking any stated motivation, but more issues crop up the more you think about the plot we've been presented with. To bring up just one example, consider the Mists Gate around which the plot revolves; how was it opened? The story makes it clear that opening and closing a Mists Gate is incredibly difficult. If you pay close attention, you'll actually notice that some dialogue implies the Gate was alreayd open when Mabon sealed Bava Nisos, while other dialogue states the cultists opened it after Saevus lured them in—the Gate was somehow opened on two separate occasions, and closed on a third; we never receive an explanation for how that happened at any of those points in time.

In addition to some of Absolution's plot holes, there are some baffling omissions from JW's overall plot. The main thing that had been teasing Janthir and building hype and interest in it for years of the game's life was the Eye of Janthir, but it never makes an appearance throughout the expansion. Did the team just forget about it? Was it never actually important? Is it going to show up in future content instead, despite being called the Eye of Janthir?

Overall, the Absolution story, particularly its finale, feels rather underwhelming and clunky. There are many aspects that feel outright missing, which is honestly bizarre given how well-paced the expansion seemed up until this point.

Bava Nisos

Bava Nisos is the fourth and final map of Janthir Wilds. Like Mistburned Barrens before it, it is a very small map and primarily focused on its meta-event, though unlike the Barrens, it does have quite a few dynamic events outside of the meta.

Bava Nisos is a very unique environment, being a ruined city merged with the titanic Saevus Saxum. The city itself has become Saevus's body and organs, and it is filled with a mix of stone ruins, fleshy and bulbous growths, and ominous, floating platforms. Much of the map is also drenched in a strange, glowing yellow liquid that seems to be one of Saevus's bodily fluids, likely his blood; the other titans, as well as the macrophages, are made of the same substance. Overall, the map has a very unique appearance and atmosphere. I personally think it looks amazing, but I can absolutely understand why others might find it unappealing.

In terms of events, there's a decent number of them packed into Bava Nisos's small area, and most of them are rather unique—for better or for worse. Some, such as the obsidian mirror event in the north of the map or the inflammation events, are very long-winded and repetitive. The random nature of the mirror event in particular can be rather frustrating. In any case, it's clear some effort was put in to make this map's events feel special, and I think the team succeeded there.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the map is exploration. At first it seems difficult to get around—until you realize there's really nowhere to go. Nearly half the map is blocked off outside of the final stage of the meta, making the already-small zone feel even smaller. Aside from those blocked locations, completing map exploration in Bava Nisos takes around 10 minutes at the absolute most. There really just isn't much ground to cover.

A Titanic Voyage

The Bava Nisos meta-event, A Titanic Voyage, follows Livia, Councillor Ludo, and Bengt Tovasson as they lead Alliance forces into the city to assault Saevus Saxum's vital organs. Similar to many other recent metas, it is directly tied into the story, taking place sometime between the first and second story steps of Absolution.

The meta is split into four phases. First is an event at the far west of the zone where you kill hordes of titanspawn to charge Legavo. Next is a fight against Lextalion the Merciless, a boss which resembles the raid boss Gorseval and uses a number of difficult mechanics, as far as world bosses go. Once it's defeated, the zerg splits into three lanes for the third phase, taking down barriers at each lane with siege damage. Finally, in the fourth phase, players assault Saevus's lungs and heart, with slightly different battles at each.

The general consensus on this meta seems to be that it is as underwhelming as the story; on that front, I have to firmly disagree. In a vacuum, I think it's a great meta: the first and third phases are inoffensive, but both of the real battles of the chain are fantastic. Lextalion is a very unique and challenging encounter, while the final phase presents more of an organizational challenge. After clearing it on the first day, I genuinely couldn't fathom how other players were coming to the conclusion that it was disappointing.

While I still disagree with that assessment, I discovered how others managed to come to it on the second day. On launch day, I'd participated in the central lane of the meta, which is definitely the most interesting and climactic. It starts with a battle against a champion with Decima's skills, and after it's dead the group must split up. Some dash around the area to destroy weak points, similar to the Dragonfall meta; others stay behind to kill waves of ooze-like enemies. If the oozes aren't killed fast enough, they reform into the initial champion and render the weak spots undamageable; to complete the event efficiently, good organization is required. Once all weak spots are down, a new champion appears at the heart, using a small set of unique mechanics that remind me of Slothasor.

In comparison, the northern and southern lanes are definitely simpler. Each has you targeting one of Saevus's lungs instead of its heart. Rather than targeting weak spots spread around the area, they're all attached to the lung itself in a small area, and there is no respawning boss. That said, the lung isn't a pushover, either; it uses a variety of AoEs to attempt to push players away and will summon titanspawn to defend itself, and the assault on each lung ends with an encounter against the same Slothasor-esque titanspawn.

Overall, I think the final encounter is perfectly serviceable. I was ecstatic when I completed it the first time. While I can understand how players might find it underwhelming if they've only done the lung assaults, I strongly believe that players' dislike of the meta is largely influenced by their feelings on other aspects of this release. I fully expect players to come around to it later once they separate their opinions on the story from the meta, similar to what recently happened to Gyala Delve's eastern meta.

My largest critiques of the meta are actually aimed at its third phase, the siege on the barriers around each organ. This phase is very repetitive and overstays its welcome a bit; I feel it would benefit from being a bit shorter. Additionally, it features a unique mechanic—one that's carried over into the final battle as well—that's completely pointless: the portals. These portals shoot at players, and are weak to the Warclaw's lance. However, their attacks aren't very meaningful, and the lance still takes many hits to kill them; as such, they go completely ignored. A new layer would be added to this phase if the portals were more threatening and only took 2-4 lances to kill, making it actually worthwhile to pay attention to them.

Instanced Content

Kinfall

Kinfall is the 24th fractal added to the game. In the Absolution blog post, the team announced a change in design philosophy for this fractal. Whereas other recent fractals—Nightmare, Shattered Observatory, and Sunqua Peak in particular—have long, complex, and "raid-like" designs, the team wanted to commit to a shorter, simpler, and more streamlined experience with Kinfall, one much more in line with the earlier fractals. In that regard, I believe Kinfall was an absolute success.

Kinfall has you playing the part of Bearkin raiding Drakkar's Lair in search of a lost comrade, Silken Weir. You must fight through several waves of Icebrood, complete a couple very short and simple jumping puzzles, and slay a Champion Icebrood Goliath before coming face-to-face with the final encounter of the fractal, the Whispering Shadow.

The unique mechanic of the fractal is "Life-Fire" and "Deathly Rime". While in the fractal, stacks of Deathly Rime will be constantly applied to players, dealing damage over time, slowing you, and decreasing your skill's recharge rates, similar to being chilled. At the beginning of the fractal, all five players are given a stack of Life-Fire, which renders you and nearby players immune to Deathly Rime. As you progress through the fractal, you'll encounter doors which require a player to sacrifice their Life-Fire to progress, forcing you to stick tightly together as you lose your protective buffs one-by-one. In the final fight, Life-Fire rotates between the players, with only two of you having it at any given time.

This mechanic is a lot simpler in practice than it seems written out like this, but it's more than enough to make the fractal feel unique. I expect it will have some interesting interactions with certain instabilities, what with how it requires players to stick closely together.

Finally, let's discuss the boss. The Whispering Shadow is clearly just the Whisper of Jormag, yes, but I actually like the fight a lot. It has a couple mechanics that are pulled form or inspired by its strike version, but there are enough alterations and additions to make it feel like a completely different fight. Its main gimmick is its Cryoflash attack—it will create a shockwave either along the ground or in the air, and you must react accordingly by either avoiding or purposefully being hit by the icicles that launch you into the air.

In terms of other unique mechanics, there's the Frozen Teeth attack, which is similar to Ignaxious's arrows mechanic and becomes more difficult as the fight goes on, and the Gorefrost attack, which targets a random player and forces them to avoid a barrage of icicles in a circular pattern that's very satisfying to pull off properly. Finally, it also has its Guttering Light mechanic, where it gains a defiance bar and causes the Life-Fire to become a dangerous AoE. If you don't break it's defiance fast enough, it'll steal the Life-Fire and begin replacing that mechanic with a more dangerous one; you have to break its defiance to get the Life-Fire back.

Overall, it's a fun and unique fight. I think the team did an amazing job of reusing some elements of the Whisper of Jormag strike while also making this fight feel completely distinct. I'm excited to see what they do with its CM. 

Convergences

Ura 

This release brought with it the third and final JW Convergence: Ura. Unlike Greer and Decima, who had both their world boss and raid varieties to pull from for their Convergence movesets, Ura was based solely on her raid incarnation. Most of her raid mechanics simply don't translate to 50-man content, and it shows.

Of the three Convergence bosses, Ura is by far the simplest and least threatening. She has a few main mechanics. Geysers dot the arena which deal passive damage and buff her if she stands in one. A pool of sulfur at her feet damages players who enter her hitbox. She occasionally jumps in a direction and will deal heavy damage to anyone she lands on. She sometimes shoots a spray of sulfur AoEs at a distant player. She occasionally creates a handful of small AoEs that trap players in bubbles. Finally, at the beginning of her final phase, she spawns a Champion Fumaroller.

That about summarizes all of her notable mechanics. The main takeaway is that if you're grouped up right next to her—that is, playing the fight the way you ideally should be—most of her mechanics are completely negated. The geysers aren't threatening at all, her sulfur spray only targets distant players, and her bubbles are incredibly small and easy to avoid. Basically the only thing you really need to pay special attention to is her jumps, forcing you to follow her around the arena and avoid getting stomped.

Ura is markedly less threatening and interesting than the other two JW Convergences, but I still found the fight overall enjoyable, especially by the standards of "open-world" encounters. Overall, I think the JW Convergences are a definitive improvement over their SotO counterparts, and I'm eager to see the team continue to iterate on this format.

Challenge Mode 

Ura wasn't the only addition we got to Convergences this release. Absolution also brought us the long-awaited JW Convergence CM. So far I've only had the chance to participate in one CM run against Greer—who, somewhat shockingly, has proven to be my favorite of the three fights—but I found the experience quite enjoyable. The Mount Balrior CMs work similarly to Outer Nayos, making the boss's attacks more dangerous, increasing the rate at which thumper synchronization decreases, and only allowing players to revive once; in exchange, additional rewards are provided based on how quickly you clear the events and boss. 

Similar to the normal mode, the chances of thumper synchronization running out are very slim—quite different to Outer Nayos, where Zojja running out of essence is the main threat. I found that Greer was genuinely very threatening in CM, however. Many of his mechanics can outright one-shot you in CM, especially if you have a decent number of essences, and I nearly died—something that never happened to me in any of the SotO Convergence CMs, even when trying them out for the first time. I appreciate that the team continue to use these CMs as a way of injecting some genuinely difficult 50-man content into the game.

Everything Else

No New Ranger Pet?

Strangely, this release didn't give us a new ranger pet. SotO set a precedent of new-model expansions adding 3 ranger pets—one on release, one in the 2nd major patch, and one in the 3rd. JW was following this pattern until now, but the absence of a pet in Absolution likely implies that what we perceived as new precedent was really just a coincidence.

Mursaat Shadowcraft

This release gave us the fourth entry of the Mursaat Shadowcraft mastery line, and the final mastery of JW: Janthir Beehive Mastery. The jokes honestly just write themselves here; ending on a beehive is really indicative of how unimpressive most of JW's Masteries were.

We did get some more use out of the obsidian mirrors in Bava Nisos, but I actually think they were utilized worse here than in Mistburned Barrens. There's one you're forced to use to get from the waypoint & base camp to the rest of the map, and there's a bunch used in a dynamic event I described above. Ultimately, I'm left feeling like this mechanic had a ton of missed potential, but I doubt we'll ever see it again. I spoke at length about the obsidian mirrors in my Repentance review, so I won't repeat myself any further.

Orrax Manifested

This release gave us a new legendary backpiece, Orrax Manifested. I've only done a bit of the collection, but it seems to provide a little extra lore on Demons and their views on Tyria, which is nice. I also really like that the backpiece itself has such an incredibly unique appearance; some people absolutely hate it while others absolutely love it. I personally fall into the second group; I hope we continue to get incredibly unique cosmetics like this going forward. It's also nice that open-world players have another option for fleshing out their legendary armory.

QoL

This release came with a couple of long-awaited QoL additions, most notably the Wizard's Portal Tome and Wizard's Gobbler. These items contain the functionality of non-Gemstore portal tomes and gobblers respectively, saving players a lot of space in their shared inventory slots. I really like that they're handled via a collection, thereby allowing you to keep certain tomes/gobblers on hand individually. The omnitome and omnigobbler are a bit janky in that they used dialogue windows, but I ultimately think the game is much better off with them than it was without.

The team also attempted to address the issues that plague one of the game's worst-implemented systems: research notes. Peer Reviewed Research is a new consumable item that grants 150 notes and is craftable by all professions. While it's nice to have, this is ultimately just a small band-aid over the gaping wound that research notes created; the system suffers from a number of fundamental flaws that this item can't account for. The recipe also uses an amalgamated gemstone, making this a very expensive and somewhat inefficient option.

The last major QoL introduced with this patch was the conversion of the three rift essences to currencies instead of materials. I have no notes for this one; it's a great decision and something they honestly should've done from the very beginning. 

Conclusion

My feelings on Absolution are very mixed. I strongly believe that a lot of the negative reactions to it have been overblown, fueled by the ever-increasing doomerism that's been taking over the GW2 community like a plague, especially on the subreddit. At the same time, however, many of those reactions are entirely justified, and I myself share many of those opinions. I cannot in good faith call Absolution a "bad" release, but it's definitely left more of a sour taste in my mouth than any other in memory.

In terms of the content it adds, Absolution is a very mixed bag. Kinfall is great. A Titanic Voyage, at least in my opinion, is also great. Bava Nisos and the Ura Convergence are fine, and the QoL additions and Orrax are nice to have. Where this release really stumbles is its story. If it were handled better, I believe players would have much more positive reactions to the rest of its content. The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that Absolution may just be the weakest story the team has ever put out. 

I've always been a staunch defender of GW2's more controversial releases, and I believe I've always had valid reasons to do so. Champions was an absolute mess, but it was a result of IBS's ending being thrust onto the B-team along with multiple impossible tasks; with that in mind, what the team managed to put together is actually insanely impressive. Gyala Delve's storyline, especially the second half, felt rushed, but this was also forgivable, given SotO was right around the corner; players' negative reactions to it were inflated due to the perceived content "drought" of the LW1 re-release. SotO's second half was clunky with half-realized ideas and a breakneck pace, but it was clearly because the team bit off more than they could chew while experimenting with the new content model.

In all of these cases, there were clear causes as to what went wrong, and the content we got often wasn't nearly as bad as the community made it out to be. With Absolution, however, there really aren't any clear excuses. The team now had SotO to use as an example for which mistakes to avoid—and until now, it seemed like they'd learned all the right lessons. There weren't any significant roadblocks, like how IBS had to be developed following layoffs at the height of Covid-19, and the next expansion had already been announced to be receiving several more months of development time, so there shouldn't have been any rush to move the team over either. The issues that plague Absolution are kind of inexcusable, and those problems are pretty bad.

I like what the team tried to do narratively with the three cultists, and I think releasing their souls makes for a unique and potent ending. However, the encounter itself is completely lacking in both gameplay and presentation. Say what you will about Eparch or the Ravenous Wanderer, but both of their final battles in the story were flashy and interesting; they were filled with spectacle. The only real spectacle involved in Absolution's finale is the setting itself. This isn't to mention that Absolution introduces tons of plot holes, the character writing feels unusually janky, and the release is full of straight-up typos and grammar mistakes. 

At times, Absolution feels like playing through a first draft. This community loves to call everything they dislike "unfinished", but this is the first time I have personally ever felt that way towards a new release. The community consensus on Absolution seems to be that it's "underbaked", and while I think it introduces some very strong content, I ultimately have to agree with that conclusion.