ArenaNet has been teasing an announcement at Summer Game Fest, with rumours going around that it would be Guild Wars 3. Now, it can be confirmed that ArenaNet was indeed teasing Guild Wars 3!
Launching on PS5 and PC, the beta will start late in 2027, so there’s going to be a while until the finished game is on the cards. You should be able to register on guildwars3.com but it does not seem to be live at the time of writing.
The announcement comes just shy of 14 years since Guild Wars 2 was released, though that has received six major expansion packs, with the last being Visions of Eternity, which launched last year.
But Guild Wars 3 won’t take the timeline forward, instead it’s delving back in time and will be set over a thousands years before the events of the original game. Guild Wars 3 will take players to the Tyrian region of Orr, an untamed wilderness that’s filled with the world’s magics. Vael spirits will roam the land to embody the vitality of the landscape, but this idyll will be challenged with the emergence of guilds, who will fight over how to exploit or protect what lies beyond the current reach of civilisation.
Players will take on the role of a Vaelwarden, a member of a preservation oriented guild looking to protect the spirits and the lands of Orr. Each player will have a Seeker spirit that will serve as a connection to the other spirits found within Orr, and a great looking mount that will carry them throughout the open world. Naturally, this starting point will grow and expand as you level up, customise your character and build skills through gameplay in a way that Guild Wars is known for.
As Guild Wars is coming to consoles for the very first time, ArenaNet has worked to ensure that combat will work well across both controller and keyboard. Positioning will be key to success, the game giving you momentum to movement, both with a way to seamlessly transition between various modes, and then to use speed to amplify your attacks.
It will be really interesting to see how that comes together, with more details about pricing, beta tests, release dates and gameplay coming through 2026 and 2027.
Source: press release, SGF
