Guild Wars celebrates 20 years with a 'Reforged' overhaul that's free for existing players, and offers the whole shebang to newbies for $20: 'It was a good time to give it a refresh'

Guild Wars screen - dude in a mask holding a sword over his head like he's He-Man in fancy dress or something — (Image credit: ArenaNet)

Guild Wars released in 2005 and, even in the wake of the all-conquering World of Warcraft, offered an MMO experience that was distinct and freeform enough that, 20 years later, you'll still find people saying it's the best MMO around. OK, these days they're probably more likely to be on-board with the superb sequel, but still.

With that 20th anniversary in mind, developer ArenaNet has announced the most substantial overhaul in the game's history: December 3 will see the launch of Guild Wars Reforged, a visual and gameplay overhaul for the venerable monster-bothering quest-em-up.

Reforged is co-developed by ArenaNet and new studio 2weeks, which is largely composed of former ArenaNet staff, and bills itself as a modernised version of the game and its (many) expansions. The visuals have had an HD overhaul, performance has been tweaked, the UI has been reworked, there's a new (optional) objective guide, and Reforged also boasts proper controller support and Steam Deck optimisation.

"Reforged means we've toughened it up," jokes Stephen Clarke-Wilson, the game's original director, in an interview with IGN. "There's a certain charm to the game, and besides being an MMO and letting you play with friends, you can play solo, you can have henchmen, and you can play with anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. We've had 100% uptime [of new players] for the last over six years now, even with the changes we've made, it's so easy to get into. It was a good time to give it a refresh."

"It's been great returning to [Guild Wars], and honestly, ArenaNet had a really strong engineering culture right from the beginning, and they've done an impeccable job maintaining the code base for the original game," said 2weeks CEO and co-founder Brandon Dillon. "Like when we showed back up, it was in much better condition than when I had left it 15 years ago, and it was really nice returning to all of those systems and getting to work in it again."

Guild Wars: Eye Of The North — (Image credit: ArenaNet)

Dillon emphasises that "it's not a remaster" but a modernisation of the existing game, focused on nixing "all the limitations the game had with modern PCs… this was all about ensuring that Reforged worked seamlessly with the modern system while maintaining the core aesthetic and beauty of the original game. The biggest chunk of work really was building the right user experience on Steam Deck and supporting controllers, which was a deep and interesting problem, but really rewarding to work on.

"I was remembering all the amazing developers on the project, the programmers that I worked with who built these cool features that we were adapting, and the artists and designers who just built this fantastic content and these beautiful worlds. It's an amazingly handcrafted and huge experience; it's kind of conceptually overwhelming to engage with."

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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