Guild Wars 3: everything we know so far – 2027 beta, PS5, no subscription, no battlepasses

ArenaNet has officially announced Guild Wars 3, with the first beta planned for fall 2027. No release window has been confirmed yet, but the studio referenced "the next 18 months" as the period it will spend improving Guild Wars 2 before GW3 arrives — which points to a late 2027 window, not long after those first beta tests.

Guild Wars 3 is the first entry in the series to launch on both PC and PlayStation 5. Combat is being built around an action-RPG foundation that works with both gamepad and keyboard and mouse, and ArenaNet is putting heavy emphasis on a movement system where momentum carries across gliding, riding, jumping, and wall-running — and feeds directly into combat damage. The studio describes it as "strategic skill use, positioning, and movement — where action RPG combat meets Guild Wars build-making," which sounds like a deliberate step away from the hotbar-cooldown loop that defines most MMOs. The story is set 1,200 years before the original Guild Wars, in Orr — described as "a vast wilderness frontier imbued with the world's magic." Players take on the role of a Vaelwarden, part of an adventurer's guild protecting nature entities called Vael spirits, each player accompanied by a large spirit mount called a Seeker. Conflict between guilds over whether to protect or exploit those spirits is the central tension — yes, there will be guild wars. Playable races haven't been officially confirmed, but concept art strongly suggests humans, Asura, and Kodan — the massive bear-folk who have never been playable in the series before. There's no subscription and no battlepasses. Studio head Colin Johanson told IGN plainly: "we think players are sick of those too."

Guild Wars 2 isn't going anywhere. ArenaNet posted a dedicated video outlining its future alongside GW3 — expansion development is pausing, but the game will receive quality-of-life and polish updates in the lead-up to GW3's launch, then return to annual major content updates afterward. Specific additions include a Hall of Monuments system to carry GW2 account achievements into GW3, modernization of older content, a new World versus World map, and a new explorable zone set in Orr that ArenaNet says will bridge the two games' worlds.

The reaction from the Guild Wars community has been genuine surprise — few expected ArenaNet to actually greenlight a sequel rather than keep GW2 running indefinitely as a live-service platform. The fall 2027 beta is the next concrete milestone, with an exact date still to come.