“We see it happening real time and know the state of where our industry is and it’s tough to watch,” says Studio Director, Colin Johanson, “it’s a real blessing that we have a game and a franchise that continues to run and powers our studio through all of that, and that we’ve been able to keep moving forward. I think as important as the ArenaNet team is to accomplish that, I think community is just as big of a part of that, by having a community that’s stuck with us. Many of them for 20 years from Guild Wars 1. We’re not here if not for that community.”
With the Guild Wars IP enjoying its 20th anniversary this year, I’m keen to understand why the team thinks Guild Wars 2 still resonates so well with players and media. Since its launch, many MMO releases have often failed to find traction or go the distance. Warhammer Online, The Secret World, APB: Reloaded and Rift are just a few that fell short, despite early promise and sparks of interest. Yet despite a dip in overall income since its launch heights (entirely to be expected for a game over ten years old), Guild Wars 2 remains incredibly stable, performing well in 2024 against previous years.
Thirteen years ago Guild Wars 2 released to universal acclaim, praised for its innovative take on a genre that had grown stagnant as developers scrambled to replicate the success of World of Warcraft. Five expansion packs later and on the back of the recently released Repentance chapter of Janthir Wilds, I recently sat down with Studio Head, Colin Johanson, Game Director, Joshua Davis, and Studio Narrative Director, Bobby Stein, to find out not only how they’re all doing, but how they’re feeling about Guild Wars 2’s continued staying power.
Anyone who loves MMOs and experienced the era of WoW clones from the mid 2000’s saw studio after studio attempt to replicate Blizzard’s success, only to watch most of them fade away. Even games like WildStar struggled to survive despite being backed by big budgets, experienced developers and strong creative teams. Perhaps part of Guild Wars 2’s continued success is the fact that ArenaNet not only iterated just enough on a tried and tested formulae, but continue to do so.
“We’ve continued to take that philosophy of ‘let’s innovate and try new things!’” says Studio Head, Colin Johanson. “and we’ve applied them to the live game. That’s been really valuable to us, sometimes it hasn’t worked and sometimes we’ve tried things that failed spectacularly, but some of the things have worked really well. And I think a lot of fans are looking for that.”
This process of iterating – whether successfully or not – has undoubtedly resulted in some great additions to the game, and interestingly, things that I think the rest of the industry is still paying attention to. Smaller, more frequent seasonal content, engaging mount systems, player housing and everyone having the ability to self-heal have all recently wormed their way into World of Warcraft. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a monopoly on these ideas, FFXIV has most of these things, but ArenaNet has stretched the concepts of what they offer players, and often rewritten the rulebook to make them far more engaging. Despite these innovations, the MMO genre feels as siloed as ever. Studios seem caught between the need to support and retain their current player base, often avoiding too much experimentation, and the outside perception that the genre is stagnating if it’s not continually growing or drawing in new audiences.
“It’s certainly a challenge to maintain the interest and engagement of the fans that you’ve already got playing the game, but also try to find ways to expand the awareness. What we found mostly is that expansions are not a great vehicle for going broad. Those are really for your core fans.” says Josh. “We are looking at ways to grow the player base and a lot of it comes through platform expansion. The Steam launch that we did back in 2022 was great for us. Looking for opportunities like that, or even moving into new markets is really kind of probably the bigger opportunity for us growth-wise.”
Guild Wars 2 made its Steam debut in September 2022, following a turbulent period shaped by the challenges COVID-19. Like many studios, ArenaNet was hit hard, largely mothballing its Bellevue, Washington office for almost everyone but IT, before shifting to hybrid working in March 2020. Despite the disruption, the studio managed to release End of Dragons just six months before the Steam launch, a notable achievement in a genre reliant on regular content and seasonal updates. Even more impressively, the expansion was met with positive reviews.
The move to Steam has proven successful, peaking at just over 8,000 concurrent players and maintaining a steady average of around 4,000 daily users. While those numbers may seem modest, they don’t reflect the vast bulk of the playerbase, which still uses the ArenaNet launcher. Steam numbers also continue to spike during major updates and expansions, highlighting consistent engagement, another feather in ArenaNet’s cap and a growing number of new players. With over 81,000 Followers and likely more than a million wishlists, it’s clear that appetite in Guild Wars 2 remains strong.
As with any long-running MMO, the barrier to entry can be daunting as it continues to add new content. With five expansions, years of system updates, and no guarantee of friends already in the game, getting started in Guild Wars 2 might seem like a daunting task. The learning curve can be steep for returning and new players. However, after recently replaying the original story campaigns, this time with my kids experiencing the genre for the first time, I was struck by how well the onboarding still holds up. One of its most welcoming features is its approach to itemisation. Instead of constantly chasing new gear every season, players can enjoy a far flatter progression system. Add to that the option to jump into smaller, standalone expansions, and Guild Wars 2 becomes surprisingly accessible even to complete beginners. “I think this is the most sustainable version of development for Guild Wars II that we’ve had in the entirety of Guild Wars II’s lifecycle.” says Josh. “There’s certainly an adjustment period for fans to the new model. A lot of our fans are used to living world content and the larger expansions that we used to release, and I don’t fault them for looking for those things. But there’s valid reasons why that’s no longer sustainable for us. Overall I think we’re pretty happy with the cadence, though I think we’d love to be doing more.”
The story of the game, which stretches across several expansions, is a bit more complex. While it’s entirely possible to play through each expansion in order, the introduction of mounts in Path of Fire and the narrative shift following End of Dragons tend to steer players toward the later-game content. After all, traversing the world on one of the game’s incredible mounts is far more enjoyable than traveling on foot.
“It can be very intimidating to a new player to say “am I ready to dive into this?” when really I think we should be saying “Hey! You play the game the way you want!” says Bobby. “You can download it for free, jump in with your friends and just try it, right? I think for a lot of people that’s really an opportunity to discover whether or not this is like the right experience for them, and hopefully you gravitate to the beauty of the world, its gameplay and the collaborative and cooperative elements.”
That’s pretty much how my kids and I have been approaching the game—slowly working our way through the starting zones, exploring the capital cities, and eventually making our way to Orr for the final showdown with Zhaitan. We’re well aware there’s a mountain of content we’ve yet to touch, even in the free base game, not to mention the expansions. But that’s part of the charm: the freedom to wander, to follow whatever piques our interest, has made the journey incredibly fun. Sure, the weight of all that future content and complex systems lingers somewhere in the back of our minds, but for now, it’s comfortably distant. As we go, we’ll gradually unlock and layer in those newer mechanics at our own pace.
Revisiting the older content also stirs up some nostalgia, especially memories of ArenaNet’s early Living World experiments. The Karka event, for instance, is etched in my memory. My poor PC almost exploded, latency was horrendous and my old guild repeatedly wiped as giant crabs laid waste to Lion’s Arch and Southsun Shoals. It’s bittersweet knowing the game probably won’t see events quite like that again. I feel that more for my kids, as those grand, chaotic spectacles are rare in MMOs nowadays. Friends and I still talk fondly about things like the Corrupted Blood incident in World of Warcraft, as those moments truly felt alive and unrepeatable. For development teams and their workload, however, such events aren’t sustainable.
Despite that, I get the sense that ArenaNet finds itself in a position where they’re not only incredibly comfortable in their skin, but more importantly, the community that they’ve fostered and the game they’ve created. My gut instinct tells me that they’re hungry for more and that they’re undoubtedly working on a successor, but with their marketing lead in the room, I chicken out and instead ask them what their favorite moments are from working on the game. You can read all their answers, and the full interview here.
