Like many of you, I’ve been watching with interest Guild Wars 2’s many recent hints about an upcoming expansion announcement. And while I haven’t played the fantasy MMO for a while, I always feel that I’m one good convincing argument to get back into it. Will this announcement be that moment? I guess we’ll see!

As we sit on the cusp of learning more about Guild Wars 2’s future, my mind started to drift over into the tantalizing direction of Guild Wars 3. What might it contain? And perhaps more concerningly, is ArenaNet spreading itself way too thin trying to pull off another title while churning out more content and expansions for Guild Wars 2?

What do we know about Guild Wars 3?

I think we have to start this discussion by acknowledging that what we know about the next Guild Wars title is not that much other than its existence — and even that is from vague job listings and a hostile shareholder meeting last year. ArenaNet has yet to make any sort of formal announcement beyond acknowledging that it’s working on it, but the community widely assumes that one is forthcoming. At some point.

Until (or unless) the studio has concrete details, a timeline, and something to show actual proof-of-concept — or better — it’s probably wise that ArenaNet keep quiet about a sequel. Guild Wars 2 is its paycheck right now, and the studio no doubt wants to keep players’ attention and focus on it.

I guess the better question is, “What don’t we know about Guild Wars 3?” Because the answer to this covers a whole lot of territory. We don’t know how far along in development it is. We don’t know if it will be an MMORPG at all. We don’t know if it’s a PC game, or a console-exclusive title, or even a mobile version. We don’t know how it’ll tie into the first two titles. We certainly don’t know if we can play as Quaggan… yet.

There’s also the very real possibility that Guild Wars 3 hasn’t progressed beyond the “review stage” where ArenaNet admitted it was in 2024, with no further serious pre-production or development happening behind closed doors.

Could this be a radical departure from what came before?

If we look back at the Guild Wars series to date, we observe that there was a major shift from the first game to the second. Guild Wars 1 was trying to be an alternative to the traditional MMO of the era, with a low level cap, collectable skills, no subscription, heavily instanced maps, and a focus on storytelling.

On the other hand, Guild Wars 2 fully embraced the MMORPG label, focused on dynamic events and rapid-fire story developments (at least at first), and different kinds of progression systems. About the only things these first two games share are the IP and the buy-to-play model.

So it’s probably foolish to assume that Guild Wars 3 — if that’s its final name — will be a similar MMO to Guild Wars 2. In fact, I feel strongly that it won’t be anything quite like the second game because ArenaNet wouldn’t want to cannibalize from itself. In the MMO industry, we’ve seen examples of this when studios try to pull off sequels and only end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Probably a better expectation is to think of this follow-up as the next generation, the next step of the Guild Wars franchise… whatever that may be. And it may be much, much smaller in scope.

Can ArenaNet handle a sequel?

Probably my biggest concern over Guild Wars 3 at this point is whether the studio has the resources to properly do a sequel while also keeping Guild Wars 2 development chugging along.

After all, it’s one thing when your studio spins down development of a current title to throw all of its resources into a sequel, but it’s quite another to work on two huge projects in parallel. It’s not impossible, mind you; ArenaNet is relatively efficient and practiced these days, and it’s apparently expanded over the last few years, plus we know NCsoft has been happy with the game’s performance, especially if it’s bragging up the next title prematurely. But with its current resources, can the studio top or even come close to what it accomplished with GW2? I don’t know.

I applaud ArenaNet for doing an excellent job with the resources on hand, but I know some players believe Secrets of the Obscure and Janthir Wilds were smaller than End of Dragons and certainly than Path of Fire. Of course, SOTO and JW were intentionally smaller expansions produced every year over the course of four releases, rather than one big release made years apart, but it leaves the impression of reduced scope whether it’s true or not, especially given the planned delay of the next expansion. Now throw a second title on top – will it work? It’s possible but unlikely, unless major studio expansion really is going on in the background as we’re hoping.

Despite authoring a column with the word “hype” in the title, I am not allowing myself to get worked up about Guild Wars 3 until we hear concrete specifics. For ArenaNet, I would say that it’s probably a better strategy to keep investing into Guild Wars 2 — as it is clearly doing — until it becomes unprofitable, which hopefully isn’t for a long time to come.

Do you love spectating and speculating about upcoming MMOs? We do too! Every week, Justin tackles another upcoming title on the MMO Hype Train with opinions, analysis, and blind fervent hope. Choo choo all aboard!