Earlier this week, ArenaNet surprised its fans with the announcement of Guild Wars: Reforged, a refined version of the classic 2006 MMORPG that will be released on December 3 via Steam and PC Windows. Beyond a few graphics improvements, the main attraction here is the addition of controller and Steam Deck support. Does that mean ArenaNet is also working on adding the same feature to its most recent game, Guild Wars 2? I asked that question via PR channels and unfortunately got the response that the studio founded 25 years ago in Bellevue, Washington, has no plans to do so at this time.
My interpretation is that this is largely the work of 2weeks, a partner studio founded by former ArenaNet developers that has been brought on to co-develop Guild Wars: Reforged. However, for the time being, it doesn't look like they are doing any work in this area with Guild Wars 2.
It's unfortunate because many players, including myself, would love to play the newer game with a gamepad. Sure, you can sort of do it with Steam Input, but it's not nearly the same as an official implementation. Weirdly enough, ArenaNet did make some work on controller support around five years ago. More specifically, Gameplay Programmer Jon Olson worked on it for a while, as spotted back then by users and confirmed by himself on Reddit:
I have no idea how you found this, as I tried to cover my tracks, but you are correct. I have been working on native controller support, as a side project in my own time. I’ve got a good deal of it all working, but it’s still got further to go. My main goal is to have accessibility in mind. If I can help just one person play the game that would not otherwise be able to because of our current input controls, then I’ll be very pleased.
Unfortunately, Olson left ArenaNet before finishing native controller support, and nobody seems to have picked it up since. It's a shame, especially since Guild Wars 2 is thriving nowadays between the recent launch of the Visions of Eternity expansion and the 'death' of New World, which brought a lot of players to this MMORPG.
At the very least, let's hope that whatever the studio is working on next will feature native gamepad support. About a year and a half ago, an NCSOFT executive mentioned Guild Wars 3; for its part, ArenaNet neither confirmed nor denied it.
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