Back to Tyria, in the Past

At Gamescom, I was lucky enough to see a short gameplay demo of Guild Wars 3. As a huge fan of the series, I went in full of optimism and wasn’t let down by what I saw. After the initial meet-and-greet, the game was booted up on the big screen, with one developer using a PS5 and the other on a PC. It is worth noting that the game is in an early Alpha state, so there were many placeholders, including the UI (which still looked good).

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A Different Way to Move

Guild Wars 3 is set in Orr, 100 years ago, where latent magic spreads across Tyria. I was shown two classes: the Warrior and the Necromancer; however, not much was shown of the latter. The developers first showcased the movement mechanics, where I saw the Warrior run at a wall and perform a wall-run before leaping onto an adjacent wall, grabbing it, and sliding down. The animations looked crisp even at this early stage, and I could just imagine how fun the jumping puzzles will be with this tech.

Next, they ran up a hill to a keep, which acts as a camp. Here, players can change equipped abilities and meet up with others, though the developers didn’t specify what else you can do there. I was a little worried when they mentioned it was a place to meet up with other players, as I thought the keep might be an isolated hub that prevents natural world encounters. So, in the Q&A that followed, I asked them: “Will Guild Wars 3 be a traditional MMO where you see other players in the world where you can join up with them without having to go back to the keep, and is the world truly open?”

Fortunately, Colin Johanson, the studio head and director, confirmed that the game will be open-world with almost no loading screens, and that players will see each other throughout the world. He followed that statement by discussing the game’s scale, where he explained that Guild Wars 1 was on the smaller side, Guild Wars 2 on the larger side, and Guild Wars 3 will sit snugly in the middle. Whereas Guild Wars 2 could have up to hundreds of players in an event, Guild Wars 3 is aiming for around 20; note that this number was used purely as an example and is not definitive.

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Momentum-Based Combat

Going back to the gameplay, we were shown some momentum-based combat, a concept they began theorycrafting in 2015 that serves as one of the core pillars of the game. Colin gave us an example as he ran a short distance toward an enemy and used the Shield Charge skill (as a Warrior), knocking the target back into a wall. This resulted in the enemy taking damage on the initial hit and further impact damage from the wall.

Next, he demonstrated the move from farther out. This allowed Colin to build up his momentum stamina (displayed as a blue pip), resulting in more damage on the initial hit and even more upon hitting the wall. He repeated the same attack again, but this time near the edge of a cliff, which resulted in the poor enemy getting thrown a significant distance into the area below. I asked if we could do this to teammates, but unfortunately, you cannot. However, you can do it in PvP!

The next part of the presentation featured a battle with a group of spiders. Colin ran into the pack, and the spiders used a web ability on him. Nothing new, right? Wrong! Webs got caught on the weapon and shield, making the player struggle to move and reducing his attacks to negligible damage. Fortunately, he could imbue his weapon with flames through an ability; this caused the webs to burn away and allowed him to take them out with ease. What impressed me here was the animation of the web-entangled shield; every time he struck with it, the shield would move forward slightly before snapping back toward him. It really conveyed the feeling that the gear was trapped in sticky webs.

Following that display, we saw momentum-based gameplay used vertically. The Warrior held their shield out, and the Necromancer jumped onto it, springboarding into the air before crashing down on the enemies; the higher the jump, the more damage you deal. We were also told that the game will feature contextual skills, meaning abilities change depending on your current action. This was just one of the many multiplayer combo actions you can perform in Guild Wars 3. Finally, they briefly mentioned elemental spirits that can be found in the world, showing an example of an area engulfed in darkness being lit up by a light spirit that they found. This was the perfect capstone to what we were shown regarding gameplay, and once the presentation ended, we had a brief Q&A.

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There were a couple of questions regarding the shift in art direction to begin with. We were told that the world in Guild Wars 3 is filled with latent magic and to reflect this visually, they changed the art style, which explains the more vibrant colors we saw. One particularly interesting question focused on onboarding newer players. The team explained that they want a traditional difficulty curve; making it easier at first to onboard players, and then the difficulty will ramp up the more you play.

Using the Heart of Thorns expansion in Guild Wars 2 as an example, they admitted they went from easy to too hard far too quickly. Although some people loved it (me included), it was overwhelming for many, so in Guild Wars 3, they want an incremental curve. Furthermore, they liked the accessibility of Guild Wars 2, which allowed players to take long breaks and return whenever they had time, and they want to maintain that philosophy. This is something they will share more details on at a later date.

I did ask about endgame content such as dungeons and raids, but unfortunately, they are not ready to speak about that just yet. All in all, as a fan, I was impressed with what we were shown, and their answers alleviated some of my initial fears. I thoroughly look forward to learning more about what’s to come.