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The original was posted on /r/games by /u/PalwaJoko on 2025-01-19 04:42:26+00:00.
Back in the day I played a lot of Guild Wars 1. It was one of my favorite games and since that game's golden years, there have been very few games that felt like the captured the "magic" of what made that game unique. And recently I've started thinking about Gw1 from a design standpoint. Asking myself what made it feel so unique and why is it when you ask "What games are like Gw1?", You get answers struggling to answer the question. . But there's been one major thing that made me refocus on this game recently.
The rise of "solo players" in multiplayer games.
This demographic has always been apart of the gaming ecosystem. But it really feels like in the past 7 or 8 years, especially in the mmorpg genre, this demographic has become quite large. If not the majority in a few cases. These are players who would end up preferring to spend a majority of their gaming time solo. Either through true solo content or parallel play content. That's not to say they never do group content, but most of their time is spent solo.
With this in mind, it got me thinking. Guild Wars 1 was a game that appealed to this demographic perfectly after the release of NPC allies for your group. You had a game design where players could interact with one another in hub cities, do pvp, trade, have an economy, socialize. But a large portion of the PvE encounters could be done with just the player + a full group of NPC allies (called henchmen). They could also do these encounters in a full group of players if they wished, or a hybrid of it.
A RPG Deck Builder in disguise?
But the game wasn't easy, at the time (not sure how it would compare to the average gamer's skillset these days + how quickly guides are released min/maxing encounters). A lot of players it was challenging. But it was also engaging in the sense that the game almost became like a deck builder. Through the fun way of finding abilities for your class, dual class system, gearing, and henchmen loadout; players were given a lot of tools to tune their loadout to the encounter/pve combat they were trying to overcome. It was surprisingly fun and super engaging for solo players. Again, almost becoming like a deck builder in a way.
Seeing this behavior in other games
These days when I see a game pop up that has similar flexibility and customization in an RPG game; you'll see player behavior that leans towards what Gw1 offered many years ago. I was playing a game called fractured online that is a top down indie mmorpg. The game has fallen on rough times, but one of the common praises I've seen from people who played the game was its skill and encounter system. You had to "obtain" abilities by fighting mobs, you had a flexible skill system, and variety of gearing loadouts. What you saw was that players were trying to figure out how best to optimize their characters for solo play. What abilities to run to counter resists, what attributes, best gear, etc. The game felt a bit like a deck builder, yet again, in this sense. Grouping with other players was there (and I think was meant to be the primary way of playing). But a sizable portion of the community still tried their hardest to stick to solo play. Another recent "group focused" mmorpg, pantheon, I have also been playing. You see similar behavior where a seemingly sizable portion of the community is solo preferred. And I've done some data analysis on the player populations and typically, the more "solo friendly" a class is; the higher population it will be compared to its counterparts of the same role.
A unfilled gap for 13 years
Since the studio moved on from Gw1 to Gw2, the gap that Gw1 filled has been left mainly vacant. Only being somewhat filled by a remaining diehard community for Gw1 replaying the same content on the servers that are still live. I think there was even a dev interview in recent years where the dev expressed they wish they had supported gw1 for longer instead of moving completely to gw2. Since they're so different in design. The only games that I feel like come close are arpgs and crpgs.
I still think that there is great opportunity to remaster Gw1 for the studio. Update the graphics, the UI, controls, and animations. Keep the core of the game, the story, the characters the same. And take the remaster success to open up a new opportunity for adding new content to the game that is designed in the same way.
Has the gaming industry forgotten the foundation that Gw1 touched on? And with the growing demand for solo, but engaging, content in multiplayer games; is there a rising demand for the type gap that Gw1 once filled?