TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
Guild Wars 3 developer ArenaNet wants to try "wild, crazy ideas" in a genre that, according to its studio head, has "stagnated" in recent years.
During a hands-off demo where early Guild Wars 3 gameplay was shown to members of the press, I asked ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson about the state of the MMO genre in 2026 and what problems Guild Wars 3 is looking to solve.
He had plenty to say on the subject. Many MMO players are still playing the same games they were 10-20 years ago, Johanson said, citing decade-old (or older) examples like World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14, and, of course, ArenaNet's own Guild Wars 2. In that same time, "minute-to-minute gameplay in MMOs has stagnated," even as other genres have modernized and become more approachable, he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITPzxITngqA
That's "really good timing" for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 3, Johanson said, and one that presents a big opportunity for a new game to break in and shake up the scene.
"There's been very little new in the last decade, and a lot of those [newer] games either don't exist anymore or were canceled in development before they made their way out," Johanson said. "We see MMO fans constantly clamoring for and asking for something new and saying this genre desperately needs something new to move it forward right now."
Johanson certainly has a point. The biggest new MMOs of the last few years have been games like 2021's New World or Korean MMOs like Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty, all originally tied to Amazon's game publishing arm. If nothing else, their launches showed how hungry MMO players are for a big new game in the space, with each title attracting hundreds of thousands of concurrent players in their first weeks, or in the case of Lost Ark, over 1.3 million.
Flash forward to now, and Amazon is pulling out of the MMO business entirely and shutting New World down. Other prospective MMOs fans were eager to learn more about have also languished. Riot's planned League of Legends MMO went back to the drawing board in 2024 after years of development, even as the former executive producer of that project's next new MMO also got canceled. ESO is being scaled back amidst layoffs, with a sci-fi MMO codenamed Project Blackbird from the same studio getting canceled before ever being officially announced. Another promising MMO that raised $3 million onKickstarter, Ashes of Creation, imploded earlier this year following the resignation of its game director and an ongoing legal battle.
It's a grim state of affairs for MMO fans, but Johanson said there is an opportunity to make a MMO that looks to solve the genre's approachability problem and overcome the perception they are "second jobs" many players don't have time for. For him, that means making a game where meaningful progress can be made in shorter play sessions, you can play with a controller, and prep time is massively cut down.
"For many gamers today, wRead more: Full article on www.gamespot.com
What do you think about this?
During a hands-off demo where early Guild Wars 3 gameplay was shown to members of the press, I asked ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson about the state of the MMO genre in 2026 and what problems Guild Wars 3 is looking to solve.
He had plenty to say on the subject. Many MMO players are still playing the same games they were 10-20 years ago, Johanson said, citing decade-old (or older) examples like World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14, and, of course, ArenaNet's own Guild Wars 2. In that same time, "minute-to-minute gameplay in MMOs has stagnated," even as other genres have modernized and become more approachable, he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITPzxITngqA
That's "really good timing" for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 3, Johanson said, and one that presents a big opportunity for a new game to break in and shake up the scene.
"There's been very little new in the last decade, and a lot of those [newer] games either don't exist anymore or were canceled in development before they made their way out," Johanson said. "We see MMO fans constantly clamoring for and asking for something new and saying this genre desperately needs something new to move it forward right now."
Johanson certainly has a point. The biggest new MMOs of the last few years have been games like 2021's New World or Korean MMOs like Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty, all originally tied to Amazon's game publishing arm. If nothing else, their launches showed how hungry MMO players are for a big new game in the space, with each title attracting hundreds of thousands of concurrent players in their first weeks, or in the case of Lost Ark, over 1.3 million.
Flash forward to now, and Amazon is pulling out of the MMO business entirely and shutting New World down. Other prospective MMOs fans were eager to learn more about have also languished. Riot's planned League of Legends MMO went back to the drawing board in 2024 after years of development, even as the former executive producer of that project's next new MMO also got canceled. ESO is being scaled back amidst layoffs, with a sci-fi MMO codenamed Project Blackbird from the same studio getting canceled before ever being officially announced. Another promising MMO that raised $3 million onKickstarter, Ashes of Creation, imploded earlier this year following the resignation of its game director and an ongoing legal battle.
It's a grim state of affairs for MMO fans, but Johanson said there is an opportunity to make a MMO that looks to solve the genre's approachability problem and overcome the perception they are "second jobs" many players don't have time for. For him, that means making a game where meaningful progress can be made in shorter play sessions, you can play with a controller, and prep time is massively cut down.
"For many gamers today, wRead more: Full article on www.gamespot.com
What do you think about this?