Few online RPGs have aged as gracefully as Guild Wars. Released in an era dominated by subscription-based MMORPGs, it gained an audience thanks to its familiar distribution model and large-scale story campaigns. Over 20 years, the project has aged considerably, and the modern gaming community may not even know of its existence. Guild Wars Reforged was released to attract the audience's attention again. Did it succeed? Find out in our review.
Guild Wars: Reforged is a remaster of the first Guild Wars, focused on preserving the original structure of the campaigns and basic mechanics. The project does not offer a rethinking of the genre and does not seek to change the fundamental systems of the original. Its task is to update the technical state of the game and make the content accessible to a modern audience.
The original Guild Wars relied on solutions unique to the mid-2000s: an instanced world structure, a party-based format, fixed campaigns, and tactical combat dependent on builds. These features defined the style of the game, but at the same time made it vulnerable to aging. A decrease in the number of players, the difficulty of managing heroes, and the uneven quality of campaigns are the factors that anyone who returns to the project today inevitably faces.
A Remaster That Doesn't Break the Game
The main goal of this re-release is its technical update. The main part of the work concerns the clarity of the image. Textures look sharper. Lighting and shadows have become deeper, more contrasting, and are displayed more correctly. The only thing the developers didn't touch is the models of characters and objects: they are still angular and don't have a large number of polygons. Therefore, a new picture on an old frame can feel unnatural.
The interface has also been improved. The original version was designed for monitors with small resolutions, which made the elements on modern screens small and blurry. In Reforged, the text and icons have been fully adapted for large screens.
The audio has been updated according to the same principle. The music by Jeremy Soule and the voice acting remain original, but the background effects have been reworked: water flows, weather phenomena, and ambient sounds have been re-recorded — now they sound much cleaner.
Technical modernizations have affected stability. The re-release loads faster, doesn't suffer from memory leaks and frame rate drops. And all these advantages don't require upgrading your hardware! For the remaster to work normally, an Intel Pentium, a GeForce series video card, and 4 GB on the hard drive are enough. In addition, the remaster works great on Steam Deck and is even adapted as much as possible for gamepads.
20 Years of Unchanged Gameplay
Guild Wars: Reforged retains the original structure without revising the mechanics. The basis of the battle remains a panel of eight skills, and each skill has an activation time and a cooldown. The hero also fights independently with the help of auto-attacks. The skills work the same way as in the old version, their interactions and synergies are preserved. The remaster does not change the balance and does not introduce new conditions — the changes only affect the convenience of perception: the effects are displayed more clearly, the interface gives clearer feedback, and the tutorial explains the basic mechanics in a clear language.
The game features 4 full-fledged campaigns: Prophesies, Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. Each campaign represents a separate large region with its own history and mechanics. You can complete them in any order: the only difference will be felt in the starting lines with the backstory of your character.
But the content of the campaigns themselves feels uneven. The plot of Prophesis is too drawn out and does not have a detailed history. In Factions, you need to grind for a very long time and complete all possible quests to complete the branch. Nightfall is recognized as the best — it has an interesting plot and strong opponents.
The open world in Guild Wars: Reforged is built on a zonal principle and is similar to Diablo or Path of Exile. Cities and outposts function as social hubs: players gather in them, groups are formed, trade is carried out, and builds are created. But after leaving the hub location, each game session becomes an instance that is created individually for the player and his group.
A key element of the game is the party model. The content is designed not for one character, but for a group of four to eight participants. When there were no real players in the location, they were replaced by mercenaries or heroes. The former act autonomously and require minimal control. The latter can be manually configured with skills, equipment, and behavior, which makes them virtually fully controlled combat units. And many complete the entire game with a fully configured squad of heroes.
The main emphasis in this group management is on build creation. The skill system limited the number of active skills, which forced you to distribute roles, select synergy between party members, and take into account the composition of enemies. Mass grinding was absent: no key task required endless farming — this distinguished Guild Wars from the MMOs of its period and made it closer to a tactical RPG than to classic genre representatives.
Diagnosis
Guild Wars Reforged does not try to rethink the original — it's like a careful restoration of a cult building. The developers did not change the gameplay and do not try to present a rethinking, which the developers of other remakes-remasters like to declare. Instead, Reforged takes the classic MMO and gives it the clarity, stability, and accessibility needed to be enjoyed for another ten years or more.
For veterans, the remaster is a tribute, not just nostalgia. For newcomers, it's the best opportunity to find out what made Guild Wars a genre-defining game. And for the industry as a whole, it's a reminder that some games don't need rethinking to remain timeless. You just need to make sure they are well presented.
