Guild Wars

Guild Wars

Developers
	ArenaNet
Publishers
	NCSOFT
Release dates
Windows	April 28, 2005
Reception
Metacritic	89
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions	Cosmetic, Free-to-grind, Unlock
Modes	Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	MMORPG
Themes	Fantasy
Series	Guild Wars

Guild Wars
Guild Wars	2005
Guild Wars 2	2012

Guild Wars is an online multiplayer RPG developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSOFT.

Guild Wars was released for Windows on April 28, 2005. It was followed by three expansions: Factions on April 28, 2006, Nightfall on October 27, 2006, and Eye of the North on August 31, 2007. The former two do not require the base game to access.

As of April 2021, Guild Wars receives occasional updates that aim to fix issues and to ensure the game performs better on modern hardware.

General information

Guild Wars Wiki - official wiki for Guild Wars - accessible in-game using the /wiki command.

r/GuildWars Subreddit

Guild Wars Support

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website
Steam		GOTY Edition. Also available as part of Guild Wars Trilogy.
Steam (unavailable)		Original version.

Version differences

The Trilogy release includes access to the base game content and the first two expansion packs.

The Complete Collection release includes access to all base game and expansion pack content.

Monetization

Type	Notes
Expansion pack	Two expansion packs are standalone, one requires any of the standalone products.
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Factions	Standalone.
Nightfall	Standalone.
Eye of the North

Type	Notes
Cosmetic	Outfits, Skins for armors, weapons, gliders and mounts, miniature-pets, toys.
Unlock	Various account upgrades, for example Xunlai Material Storage Expansion, Extra Character Slot.

Essential improvements

Install high-quality and bonus music tracks

Guild Wars featured additional music tracks that could be installed to the game which were sold by the game's composer. They are no longer available for purchase, but can be downloaded and installed by following the instructions in this Reddit post.

Replaces some of the game's soundtrack with higher bitrate versions (up to 320kbps).

Supplements the soundtrack with additional bonus tracks.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/29720/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/29720/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Slider does not show numerical values.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Toggle to turn on 16x anisotropic filtering with "Use best texture filtering" option.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Up to 8x MSAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Above 60hz the game seems more susceptible to stutter.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, Background, Effects, Dialog, UI
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support

Restore EAX support for modern hardware

Use Creative ALchemy Universal

Download and install Creative ALchemy Universal. Run Creative ALchemy Universal. Move Guild Wars from the "Installed Games" section to the "ALchemy-enabled Games" section. Launch the game, open "Options" (F11), select the "Sound" tab, and enable "Use 3D Audio Hardware" and "Use EAX". Notes If Guild Wars does not appear in "Installed Games", manually add it with the "Add" button. Set "Game Title" to something other than "Guild Wars", such as "Guild Wars 1". Set "Location" to "Use Game Path" and paste in the path to <path-to-game>. The settings should be fine without modifications. If the game fails to start, the sound hardware may be incompatible with Creative ALchemy Universal. To undo the changes, open Creative ALchemy Universal and move "Guild Wars" from the "ALchemy-enabled Games" section to the "Installed Games" section.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
LAN play
Online play

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Vista, 7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or equivalent	Intel Pentium III 1 GHz or equivalent
System memory (RAM)	256 MB	512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	5 GB
Video card (GPU)	ATI Radeon 8500 Nvidia GeForce 3 or 4 MX Series 32 MB of VRAM	ATI Radeon 9000 Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti Series 64 MB of VRAM

At the game's launch, the game also supported Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, ME, 2000, and XP. 16-bit operating system support was dropped in 2012. Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, and ME support was dropped in 2019. Windows 2000 and XP support was dropped on January 1, 2021.