The Shadow of the Mad King 2020 Arrives Next Week

Tyria’s spookiest festival returns from October 13 to November 3! Once a year, anyone can pass through haunted doors into the Mad Realm, and its dreadful inhabitants pay us a visit. It’s all in good fun, though…except for the Labyrinthine Horror. That one gives us nightmares.*

Play terrifying games of Lunatic Inquisition, brave the Mad King’s Clock Tower jumping puzzle, speed around the Mad King’s Raceway, and challenge Mad King Thorn himself in the Ascent to Madness. Those of you who revel in slaughter are welcome to slake your bloodthirst in the Mad King’s Labyrinth.

If you just want to take in the atmosphere, visit Lion’s Arch! The city will be shrouded in perpetual night and haunted by the capricious Mad King.

Collect Pieces of Candy Corn and complete festival achievements to earn creepy rewards, including the new Lunatic Court Cape and Demon-Haunted weapons.

*Who gave that thing a chainsaw? Is it better or worse if nobody gave it the chainsaw—if it came out of the Mists fully realized as this specific concept? If someone asked you to describe your greatest fear, would you imagine a giant, predatory skeleton with a rusty chainsaw? That’s an incongruous pairing. And yet, once you’ve seen it—once the red light surrounds you and the horror hauls itself out of the earth to the grinding of rusty metal teeth—it’s a bad thought, isn’t it? It’s very bad.