[Update 12:46 pm PT] While NCSoft is clearly talking about Guild Wars 3 in their recent shareholders meeting, ArenaNet is shying away from the topic. In a statement to MMORPG.com following our request for comment this morning, ArenaNet said the following:
"As an active game studio we are always doing internal exploratory work for possible future titles we’d want to create, however we have nothing to confirm right now. The team’s focus is on Guild Wars 2 development, including the game’s next expansion, which we’re excited to talk about soon."
We followed up to inquire whether we'd hear from NCSoft as well and will update this story should they respond.
Original story follows:
Guild Wars 3 came up in a recent shareholders meeting at NCSoft, with the company effectively announcing it's in development. The confirmation came as NCSoft once again seeing stock prices drop while the company struggles to regain its footing.
In a report by Korean financial outlet Money Today (via WCCFTech), it was revealed that Guild Wars 3 was in development, though it seems ArenaNet's work on upcoming Guild Wars 2 content, including the upcoming expansion, is the priority for the North American team at the moment.
As a result, it is going to be several years before we see Guild Wars 3 actually grace digital shelves, and a lot can change between now and then, especially as NCSoft seemingly continues to flounder while stock prices fall due to mediocre performance.
Acting chairman Park Byung-moo blames an "unstable" global gaming market for the company's fallen stock price (via translation of the Invenglobal article) that by allowing the company to, erm, cook, so to speak, NCSoft will "restore trust and show trust-based performance."
The Q&A, as presented by Invenglobal, is particularly combative, with the outlet openly questioning CEO Kim Taek-jin's ability to lead the gaming publisher back to profitability. This isn't helped by the fact that NCSoft has stopped reporting sales on a game-per-game basis, something the outlet also grills the company on as well. As a result, confirming Guild Wars 3 in this report feels more like a throwaway to appease the rabid shareholders eager to see results again.
Part of the floundering stock price of the Korean MMO developer responsible for games such as the Lineage series and, of course, Guild Wars, could be attributed to Throne & Liberty failing to gain traction, though it's gearing up for a massive Western test later this spring, so the tables can turn on that MMO. NCSoft has other projects in the work, including a partnership with Sony to develop Project Skyline, which looks to be an MMO set within Guerilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn universe.
While the MTTN article seems to point to both active development and an exploratory phase of development at the same time (this could be due to a translation error - we've reached out to NCSoft to clarify - Update: see above), Guild Wars fans are likely waiting with bated breath to see what the MMO devs at ArenaNet have up their sleeves. It's been a fair bit since Guild Wars 2 was released and attempted to shake up the MMO world, and while it's remained popular since its release, it's flagged in recent years.
However, that popularity was boosted again recently thanks to the incredible End of Dragons expansion, and one can only hope the upcoming expansion for the MMORPG has some of that same magic in it, especially if the team starts to shift over the sequel.
