Guild Wars 2 immortalizes a real-life hero as NPC

Developer ArenaNet is partnering with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals to add a CMN Champion child, April Arellano, as a Guild Wars 2 NPC.

The crew at ArenaNet will once again take part in an Extra Life Game Day stream, a 24-hour broadcast that begins on Friday, November 4.

Extra Life’s annual marathon sees content creators and developers around the industry host 24-hour streams to raise funds for Children’s Miracle Network.

All donations to the nonprofit hospital network assist with healthcare costs for ill children who lack medical insurance coverage.

ArenaNet has helped raise more than $500,000 for the cause in the last five years. The Guild Wars developer‘s participation this year involves something extra special.

Introducing April, Guild Wars 2’s newest NPC

Untreatable pneumonia in 15-month-old April Arellano’s right lung resulted in her parents transferring her to Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC), a Children’s Miracle Network hospital.

The doctors at CHOC treated April’s pneumonia, then identified further complications stemming from septic shock. While the illness has a high mortality rate in cases involving children, specialists from the hospital were once more able to treat April.

Unfortunately, the septic shock had cut off blood flow to the child’s extremities, resulting in some areas of skin dying down to the muscle tissue. Doctors made the tough decision to amputate April’s left leg.

Now a 10-year-old who enjoys dancing, theater, and video games, April is being immortalized in Guild Wars 2 as an NPC of the same name.

Notably, April and her family helped ArenaNet design the character, who’s apparently “an ambitious and adept mesmer—and a serial meddler.”

She’ll appear in Guild Wars 2 as an “important part” of an update slated to go live during the studio’s Extra Life 2022 Game Day event.

Guild Wars 2 is available on PC.