Three more weeks, then at the end of August 2022 it will be “Happy Birthday!” in Guild Wars 2. The Arenanet MMORPG will then celebrate its tenth anniversary and reward players whose characters can also be ten years old (if they were created right at release). A triumphant occasion, but also, for some people, another sign that GW2 is definitely getting on in years. Where’s a sequel? You hear this question over and over again. It also comes up more and more when developers are sought for mysterious Arenanet projects. But I don’t think there’s a sequel in the works. But first, let’s clarify what the advantage of a Guild Wars 3 would be.
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Why do players want Guild Wars 3?
Of course, as someone who has played Guild Wars 2 since release, I know that the game offers fantastic gameplay, but also has its quirks. Above all, many aspects that can be described as “spaghetti code”. In other words, gameplay systems that are so old and some of whose developers no longer work at Arenanet that you no longer touch them. For example dungeons that are still in the game as “legacy content” but will not be further developed. A sequel would allow for a fresh start, not held back by the baggage of the past decade. An engine change would also be possible, after all, GW2 runs on a modified engine that Guild Wars 1 already used.
New zones and locations in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons are technically real masterpieces compared to the launch zones of 2012. Guild Wars 2 is partly its own sequel!
Source: buffed
The technical possibilities also apply to the visual aspects of GW2 – as painterly as the graphic style is, which allows the game to age well: When people spend hundreds of hours in an online world, there are of course advantages when the characters have high-resolution textures and show great light and shadow techniques. But despite these advantages, I don’t believe in it, I’ll tell you why.
Guild Wars 3: That’s why the sequel is unlikely
The predecessor of GW2, i.e. Guild Wars: Prophecies, was released in 2005 – and by the end of 2006 Arenanet’s first MMORPG had received its two campaigns, Factions and Nightfall. The following year, in 2007, there was the Eye of the North expansion. And this already prepared players for Guild Wars 2 (buy now €49.95) before, let them accumulate achievements for which they will be rewarded in the sequel. In plain language: Two years after the release of Guild Wars, the developers were already working on the sequel and officially announced it!
Two years after the release of Guild Wars, there was already the announcement of the sequel GW2 in 2007. However, the second part has been there for ten years without an announced sequel.
Source: ArenaNet
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If you compare that with Guild Wars 2, which even ten years after its release still has no announced sequel, I only think one thing: Guild Wars 2 will have to do. Despite technical quirks, the developers have the playground for their plans that Guild Wars had not made possible. The modern MMORPG landscape is also such a tough place that the cost-intensive development of a sequel that might fail seems rather unattractive – especially since you have an actively played MMORPG in which players also put money via the shop. The planned Steam release of GW2 makes much more sensebecause it can bring many new players with it for comparatively little effort.
I see Steam on the horizon! The release on the Valve platform is an important step for Guild Wars 2.
Source: buffed
Don’t forget how attached some longtime players are to their heroes after a decade. The jump from GW1 to GW2 was much easier to cope with. Especially since players are likely to have put significantly more money into Guild Wars 2, which should also make it difficult to move on to a sequel.
never say Never
Of course, all of this is just my professional opinion. I love Guild Wars 2 and I wish to continue to experience new adventures there for many years to come. But I don’t think it’s out of the question that the release of a sequel will appeal to me after all. Maybe we could carry some purchased content like cosmetic skins, like Path of Exile 2 plans to do. The Hall of Monuments from GW1 is also an indication that Arenanet knows how to make such a transition cool by rewarding longtime supporters.
In Guild Wars 1, in the Hall of Heroes, we were able to count armor, weapons, boss trophies, minis, titles, and top-geared NPC heroes towards Guild Wars 2 rewards.
Source: buffed
But how do you see it? Can such time-honored MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2, WoW & Co. even deliver an appropriate sequel after all these years? Or should the current game just keep improving to reach sequel status? Tell us in the comments!
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