Q:
been away a very long time
That’s an extremely broad question that’s not easy to answer. I’m not even sure it is a question. I suppose it might be possible to give an overview of everything that’s currently going in PvE, PvP and WvW but honestly a lot of it would be highly subjective, and I doubt you’d be interested in all of it.
Best thing would be simply to jump into the game and see for yourself. That’s one of the nice things about games without a subscription fee – you don’t have to commit to anything, you can log in just to see what it’s like.
I recommend taking a look at your traits and skills though. I doubt you’ll remember what you were using but there’s been quite a few updates so some/all of them will have changed and you might want to pick different ones.
Alternatively it might be better to start a new character (keep the one you’ve got though) so you can be reintroduced to the game gradually, rather than jumping straight in at level 50.
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
better off to make a new toon and learn the game from the ground up !!
given you left before the last expansion hot came . many things have changed in the game
you will need to learn about mastery’s and so forth and if your going to play for a long time
level up crafting and do hot story and mapping too .
good luck
This is about as current as it gets without being Path of Fire speculation. Covers the important high level ideas for Heart of Thorns.