Four questions I have about Guild Wars 3

So we recently got official confirmation that ArenaNet is working on Guild Wars 3. However, this wasn’t some happy announcement; it was a reluctant admission during a hostile NCsoft investor’s call. This is probably not the way the studio wanted to reveal this to the world, but it’s not as though we weren’t already speculating pretty heavy on it. Rumors have been swirling over a third entry in this franchise, especially considering that Guild Wars 2 is now 12 years old.

Personally, I think GW2 could keep on chugging just fine with more content and expansions for at least another decade. Its visual design has aged wonderfully and it’s a very accessible title. But fans always want sequels, even if those sequels end up disappointing.

Here are four off-the-top-of-my-head questions I have about a prospective Guild Wars 3:

How serious is ArenaNet in building a new game?

Let’s be frank here — just because a game project is announced doesn’t mean that it’s getting made or having the amount of resources poured into it that you might assume. This could be a small exploratory team at this point coming up with a design bible or just some smoke and mirrors from an anxious NCsoft that’s trying to deflect from some recent failures. Until I hear the studio itself talk about the game, show off some concept art and design outlines, will I actually believe this is happening.

Does ArenaNet have the resources and bandwidth to handle a full sequel at this point?

ArenaNet isn’t what it used to be. Layoffs and streamlining brought it down to a leaner team that could handle ongoing development of Guild Wars 2. But adding Guild Wars 3 on top of that means ramping up in terms of hiring, structure, and the need for a whole lot of additional resources — especially assuming that GW2 continues to be worked on during this presumably lengthy period.

Will this be a radically significant departure from Guild Wars 2?

This is what concerns me most, and what most fans probably aren’t thinking about. If you look at the differences between Guild Wars 1 and 2, you’ll see a similar world with a radically different game design. There was a huge design shift between those two titles, so why wouldn’t we assume this to be the case between Guild Wars 2 and 3? Nobody’s saying it’ll even be an MMO, or what we think of as an MMO.

Will there be a Hall of Monuments 2.0?

Imagining that Guild Wars 3 is actually built and there’s a ramp-up to its launch, I can foresee ArenaNet doing something similar that it did back before Guild Wars 2 launched with the Hall of Monuments. That drove a lot of traffic to the original game as players stocked up rewards for the sequel. This could be cool to do again and give GW2 a final big hurrah.