MMORPG fans were treated to a surprise during Summer Game Fest 2026, as ArenaNet took the stage to unveil Guild Wars 3, which had been unceremoniously teased by an NCSoft executive during an investors call in March 2024. Earlier this year, a job ad suggested the project was in development with Epic's Unreal Engine 5.
The announcement of Guild Wars 3 was particularly important given the near-complete lack of triple-A MMOs in development by Western studios (with the notable exception of Riot Games' elusive Runeterra MMO) and the recent cancellation of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings MMO. Indeed, in an interview on the IGN Live stream, ArenaNet Studio Head Colin Johanson said that the genre is overdue for a new game capable of innovating:
We start with player problems. We make MMORPGs, so we begin by asking what the player problems and frustrations in the genre are at that time. When we made Guild Wars 1, one of the big ones was that every online game had a subscription fee. So we made a game with no subscription fees, where anyone could play as much or as little as they wanted and always play with their friends.
When we made Guild Wars 2, we wanted to make a giant open-world MMO on the scale of other games at the time, and solve the problems those games had. We made a world where players don’t get put in conflict with one another, where it’s easy to play with other players, and where other players actually make the game more fun.
Starting with those player problems as our core means every one of our games is very different. They take place in Tyria, they draw from the same core lore, but they’re on different timelines and are very different game experiences because they solve different problems in the era they’re made in. We feel like right now the MMO genre is ready for something new. It’s stagnated; we’ve all been playing the same games for the most part for over a decade. This is when ArenaNet is at its best: when we challenge ourselves and say, let’s go solve the problems and innovate.
Johanson acknowledged that it's a risky and challenging proposition, but the genre needs to try moving forward. So far, the studio has been quite buttoned up on how they plan to do that in Guild Wars 3, except for their goal to provide a fluid, momentum-powered movement and combat experience inspired by single player action RPGs and, at least so far, impossible to find in MMOs.
ArenaNet will share more information in the coming months. The developers currently plan a beta in Fall 2027 on PC and PlayStation 5, so the full launch can be presumed to take place at some point in 2028.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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