GoKawiilHardly a year goes by without me whistling the Guild Wars 2 loading theme, rewatching clips of the original to soak up that Pre-Searing Ascalon nostalgia, or subjecting my wife to yet another Grawl impression. (Gui-la-la!)
That's how monumental ArenaNet's MMORPG has been in my life. So you can understand my excitement when the game developer announced Guild Wars 3 earlier this summer, with a beta set to launch in late 2027.
I spent countless hours playing Guild Wars in middle school and high school, and an ungodly amount of time playing Guild Wars 2 with my roommates in college. Guild Wars always felt like the dark horse in the MMORPG world, never reaching the scale and attention of World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI, yet maintaining a massive user base with a cult-like following. (It uniquely did not require a monthly subscription.) You wouldn't hear anyone talking about it in the school cafeteria like you would the other two titles (I was not a Cool Kid). Still, it always had a grand scale of wonder, adventure, and lore that drew me in—props to my older brother for discovering the game and its many discs, and building a PC to run it.
Guild Wars 3's setting predates the events of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, which means you don't really need to know anything about the series to dive in. It marks the first time the franchise is heading to console with a PlayStation 5 release alongside PC. And while developers typically wind down support for predecessor titles ahead of a sequel, ArenaNet plans to maintain both the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 for years to come. (It recently released the original game as Guild Wars Reforged with system enhancements and a mobile port.)
Details on the game—built on Unreal Engine 5 and in development for 4 years—are limited, but ArenaNet gave me a brief glimpse of early alpha footage showcasing gameplay components that have me excited to jump back into the world of Tyria.
Joy of Movement
Photograph: Courtesy of ArenaNet
Gliding is already a movement mechanic in Guild Wars 2, but when you stop and start running, the transitions are awkward and slow. All of that is becoming more fluid in Guild Wars 3, alongside some new range of movements. In some ways, it brings the game closer to an action RPG.