Guild Wars 3 made its debut earlier this year at Summer Game Fest, but at the time it didn’t give eager MMORPG fans much to go on aside from a name and a brief look at its aesthetic. Still, it was hard not to get excited about a new entry in an MMO franchise known for making bold moves, especially at a time when big swings in the genre are few and far between.
After seeing an early-alpha, hands-off demo of Guild Wars 3 that highlighted its combat and movement, and listening to ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson’s answers during a subsequent Q&A, I’m happy to report that developer ArenaNet’s history of pushing MMO boundaries seems to be alive and well. Guild Wars 3 looks to play unlike any other MMO on the market.
That’s because instead of the action bar filled with abilities seen in previous Guild Wars games or the tab-targeting gameplay many associate with MMOs, Guild Wars 3 is a fast and fluid action game, and one where you can use momentum, abilities, and the environment in unison to defeat foes. It’s built with console players in mind (Guild Wars 3 will launch on PlayStation 5 as well as PC), with Johanson noting more and more PC MMO players are starting to use controllers as well. At first glance, Guild Wars 3 looks to be more akin to a single-player, open-world sandbox RPG like Crimson Desert (a game that, funnily enough, began as an MMO) than its massively multiplayer forebears.
Set well before the events of the original Guild Wars, in Guild Wars 3 you take on the role of a Vaelwarden, a guardian of the land of Orr with magical abilities who can wallrun, jump to superhuman heights, glide, slide, and more. ArenaNet called the game’s traversal suite the “joy of movement.”
Watching the demo, it didn’t take long to see how ArenaNet came up with the name, as even doing something as basic as getting from point A to point B looked wildly entertaining. Rather than having to stop to pull out a glider or latch onto a wall to climb, you keep your momentum from one form of traversal to the next. Running up a cliff, leaping off to glide, landing on the ground in a sprint, and then jumping to begin a wallrun is seamless, with your movement speed transferring between each mobility mechanic.
This isn’t the slow, methodical climbing or gliding seen in something like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or even the aforementioned Crimson Desert. Instead, it reminded me more of open-world superhero games–ones where you can sprint straight up buildings and jump to absurd heights. While there is a stamina system associated with some of these movement systems (you won’t be able to infinitely run straight up a mountain, for example), there seems to be plenty of freedom in how, and how fast, you get where you want to go. There will be mounts, too, though ArenaNet wasn’t ready to talk about how they factor in.
Movement naturally plays a huge role in combat. In the demo, ArenaNet showed how the game’s sword-and-shield warrior class operates under such a freeform traversal system. Leaping up into the air, the warrior can then crash down on enemies with their shield. ArenaNet explained this warrior-specific ability deals extra damage based on your velocity.
Guild Wars 3 concept art showing gliders in action.
It’s easy to imagine how a warrior could become a living meteor in this system, using the speed they gain on route to their destination to completely decimate an enemy encampment from above. ArenaNet said each of the game’s classes will have contextual skills that can only be used while in the air or during specific types of movement. Classes also have some unique movement abilities of their own that can be combined with other traversal options to take advantage of momentum for combat purposes.
During a fight with a pack of raptors, ArenaNet showed how some of the warrior’s abilities cause knockback, allowing them to slam foes into surrounding walls or rocks, stunning them briefly. Enemies, too, can take advantage of the game’s terrain, ArenaNet said, though they won’t use momentum like players do.
Despite the focus on aerial acrobatics, you won’t be pulling off air combos or juggles like in Devil May Cry. Still, the warrior in the demo was in the air repositioning, wallrunning, or crashing down onto foes from above almost as much as they were on the ground blocking attacks with their shield or slashing enemies with a sword.
Watching the demo, it was easy to forget Guild Wars 3 is an MMO and not a single-player experience. Thankfully, ArenaNet showed how adding another player into the mix opens up even more combat possibilities. In the case of the demo, that was in the form of a necromancer, who could use the warrior’s shield as a springboard to launch themselves into the air and perform aerial abilities of their own. Johanson used the ranger as another example, describing their ability to create a freezing vortex that can be interacted with to launch players into the air and add additional cold damage to their attacks. Johanson said the plan is for the game to support around 20 players in its open-world combat encounters, with many more players on screen at once in the game’s cities and towns.
The in-game version of this concept art featured in the Guild Wars 3 hands-off demo.
As mentioned above, elemental effects are a factor in combat too. The demo showed the warrior and necro duo making short work of a nest of spiders by lighting their weapons aflame. In another example, Johanson said players will be able to collectively stack frost on enemies, slowing them down until they eventually become frozen entirely. Killing a frozen enemy with a knock ability causes them to explode, dealing bonus damage to surrounding foes–just one example of how players will be able to coordinate and perform multiplayer combos.
Readability looks to be another big way Guild Wars 3 is setting itself apart from other games in its genre. In many MMOs, status effects are tiny debuff icons that appear on an enemy nameplate you need to scroll over with your mouse to read. That’s not ideal when playing on a couch with a controller, so Johanson said Guild Wars 3 is focused on showing, not telling. It was clearly noticeable in the demo, which featured a minimalistic-looking user interface and made abundantly clear when enemies were stunned or afflicted with an elemental status. Enemies burst into flames when hit with repeated fire attacks, and stunned enemies looks visibility dazed (though a swirling icon over their head also helps to convey their status).
“There’s a heck of a lot less UI all over the screen than in a traditional MMO,” Johanson said. “We’re really trying to communicate the combat state live while you’re in the combat. Being able to see the enemies you’re fighting against and what your friends are doing is an important part of the combat experience.”
A look at Guild Wars 3’s wallrunning in action.
The roughly 15-minute demo focused on movement and combat, two of Guild Wars 3’s core pillars, but there were still plenty of questions to be had about nearly every other aspect of the MMO, much of which ArenaNet wouldn’t get into at this early stage.
That being said, there were some additional details and design philosophies to be gleaned from the post-demo Q&A. Guild Wars 3 development began in earnest in 2022 when the team got its hands on Unreal Engine 5, and the majority of the around 350-person studio is working on it. Even if the game’s combat and movement looks to break free of genre traditions, it’s still an MMO at heart, and one that is meant to be played with other people. Johanson explained how the team is expanding on a core tenet it used during the development of Guild Wars 2: “Other players shouldn’t make the game worse.”
At the time of Guild Wars 2’s release in 2012, friction between players was still common in many MMOs, with players having to compete over quests or resources. Johanson said Guild Wars 2 was designed to remove much of that tension. Seeing another player running up to hit the enemy you were about to target or mine a resource node you were running towards was no longer a source of frustration. Instead, you both got what you want.
Concept art of Guild Wars 3’s combat.
For Guild Wars 3, Johanson said the team wanted to take the lessons learned from Guild Wars 2 14 years ago and move the goal post further so that not only do other players not make the experience worse, they actually make it better.
“When you see a random person come running over the hill that you don’t know, and they run into the combat, they have a bunch of abilities they can use that will suddenly make the game even more exciting and unlock things like these multiplayer combos that can now happen because they’re there,” Johanson said. “Other players are an exciting thing to see in our world, because I think that’s the whole point of MMOs: to bring players into these shared spaces, and so they should make the game better, should make it a more awesome experience and feel rewarding when other players are around.”
MMOs are known for their assortment of endgame activities, and many of those in Guild Wars 3 will sound familiar to fans of the genre. Guild Wars 3 will feature a main storyline you can play like a single-player campaign if you wish, as well as dungeons, open-world activities, and, of course, PvP, though Johanson wouldn’t elaborate on what form all of those different types of content will take.
He did, however, explain how Guild Wars 3 is being designed to make the genre more approachable, where even those with limited time can still jump in and make meaningful progress. Overcoming the perception that MMOs are “second jobs” and cutting down on the amount of time it takes to get into the action is something Guild Wars 3 is looking to solve, Johanson said.
“As a player problem, one of the most fundamental questions we focused on with Guild Wars 3 is how do we make this genre have limited ‘preparing to have fun’ and be much more approachable, while still having the depth of an MMO so that players who want to play that much can do so,” Johanson said.
Guild Wars 3’s goals then are nothing if not ambitious. A movement focused, action-heavy MMO built to play equally well on controller as on mouse and keyboard, and one that looks to remedy foundational problems that have plagued the genre for years–all while trying to appeal both to MMO fans and newcomers alike. That’s a lot of ambition and expectations to put on a single game, but ArenaNet sounds energized, rather than intimidated, by the challenge.
“That is when ArenaNet is at its best,” Johanson said. “We will fearlessly charge forward trying wild, crazy ideas, some of which work out really well and end up being things that have defined what Guild Wars 1 and 2 are. Some of them are things that don’t really pan out. You have to break a few eggs along the way and be okay with trying some big ideas that don’t work. I think Guild Wars 3 is very much inspired by the same concept.”
Guild Wars 3 does not currently have a release date but will launch on PC and PS5. A beta is slated for Fall 2027.
