ArenaNet vows year‑long systems overhaul for Guild Wars 2 after Visions of Eternity ends

One day after unveiling Guild Wars 3, ArenaNet moved to reassure existing players that Guild Wars 2 is not being pushed aside. In a June 6 official post, the Bellevue, Washington-based studio said that once Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity wraps up in September 2026, it will shift into a long quality-of-life and systems-improvement phase for its 2012 MMO, starting with a Hall of Monuments update later this year.

The June 6 post, titled “The Future of the Guild Wars Franchise: Our Commitment to Tyria,” added unusual specificity to that promise. ArenaNet said it plans to spend nearly a full year revisiting each era of Guild Wars 2 to improve the player experience. It also opened a new feedback forum so players can suggest what should be addressed, and said ArenaNet studio head Colin Johanson and Guild Wars 2 game director Josh Davis will discuss the plan in a follow-up livestream on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel on Tuesday, June 9, at 11 a.m. Pacific.

That message builds directly on the studio’s June 5 blog post accompanying the Guild Wars 3 reveal. “But rest assured, we’re not done making Guild Wars 2—or Guild Wars® Reforged for that matter—and we’re committing to actively developing all three games at the same time,” ArenaNet wrote in “Celebrating the Announcement of Guild Wars 3.” Taken together, the two posts frame the announcement not as a handoff from one MMO to its successor, but as a broader franchise strategy spanning Guild Wars 3, Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars Reforged.

Guild Wars 3 was announced June 5 during Summer Game Fest, according to NCSoft and ArenaNet materials distributed through PR Newswire. ArenaNet said the game is planned for PC, including Steam, and PlayStation 5, a notable expansion for a series that has traditionally been associated with PC. Wishlisting is already open, and the first beta test is scheduled for fall 2027. In the same announcement, Johanson said, “Guild Wars 3 is a new era not just for ArenaNet and Guild Wars, but also for MMORPGs as a whole.”

The more immediate news, though, is how explicitly ArenaNet is trying to define the transition period for current players. Rather than offering a vague assurance of continued support, the studio tied that commitment to a near-term schedule: finish the current Visions of Eternity cycle, begin with a Hall of Monuments update later this year, then spend months working back through older parts of Guild Wars 2.

The June 6 update also made clear who is carrying that message. Alongside Johanson and Davis, the post featured Guild Wars Reforged game director Stephen Clarke-Willson, underscoring that ArenaNet wants the franchise’s future understood as a three-game effort, not a single new release eclipsing everything before it. For Guild Wars 2 players, the next few months are being positioned as a bridge between the end of the current expansion cycle and a foundational overhaul shaped, at least in part, by direct player feedback.