With the Reforged remake, the 20-year-old predecessor of Guild Wars 2 returns in a modernized form. Many fans celebrate the nostalgia trip.
What’s inside Guild Wars Reforged? Actually “just” a fully comprehensive, lightly modernized version of the 20-year-old MMORPG classic Guild Wars. You shouldn’t expect an elaborate remake. The package includes:
- all three campaigns of Guild Wars, namely Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall
- overhauled user interface, controller support, additional settings (e.g. for text size), and support for modern monitors
- graphic updates for, for example, dynamic bloom effects in the sky, improved lighting, or optimized textures
- increased user-friendliness through a new quest tracking system and a control guide
- verification for the Steam Deck
Here you can see the launch trailer for Guild Wars Reforged:
“I feel like the 16-year-old boy I was back then”
How does the community like the remake? Due to its age and the comparatively few innovations for the Reforged version, the remake of Guild Wars targets a rather niche audience. This is also reflected in the player numbers on Steam: According to steamdb.info, around 5,000 players are online simultaneously during the evening prime time.
Many of those who have checked it out are enthusiastic. On Steam, Guild Wars Reforged currently has a 92% positive rating after 1,559 reviews.
- Cryze writes on Steam: “I’ve loved Guild Wars since 2005 – and Reforged brought that feeling back immediately. […] Clear recommendation for old fans and newcomers.”
- Xena expresses on Steam her surprise, she expected an expansion for Guild Wars 2 but is still having fun: “So far, I’ve only had the best impressions of the game and I’m looking forward to the upcoming quests. I’m very positively surprised!”
- Uhli90 also celebrates on Steam the comeback: “I dived back into this game after 15 years and I have to say: awesome. I feel like the 16-year-old boy I was back then.”
However, there is some criticism because players are having issues with the installation or creating a Guild Wars account. Additionally, there are some buyers who do not want to recommend Guild Wars Reforged due to its old-school technology and gameplay experience.
What makes the first Guild Wars special? There are several reasons why Guild Wars was voted by MeinMMO readers as the 6th best MMORPG of all time last year. For example, the varied game world design, which consists of the three continents Tyria, Cantha, and Elona.
The travels through the various areas are accompanied by catchy music pieces from the award-winning composer Jeremy Soule, which are among the best in the genre. Additionally, there is a character system where you can combine classes and thus make a death knight from a warrior and a necromancer.
However, some veterans from back in the day rave about the namesake Guild Wars and the community spirit, the exciting PvP battles, the hard-earned achievements on the guild world ranking list, as well as the shared moments in the guild hall. Will the next installment of the series be able to bring back these old strengths? ArenaNet is looking for reinforcements for “unannounced project” – What about Guild Wars 3?
