I Got a Brief Look at ‘Guild Wars 3,’ and I’m Excited

我抢先预览了《激战3》，并为此感到兴奋

Hardly a year goes by without me whistling the Guild Wars 2 loading theme, rewatching clips of the original to soak up that Pre-Searing Ascalon nostalgia, or subjecting my wife to yet another Grawl impression. (Gui-la-la!) That’s how monumental ArenaNet’s MMORPG has been in my life. So you can understand my excitement when the game developer announced Guild Wars 3 earlier this summer, with a beta set to launch in late 2027.

几乎每年我都会哼唱《激战2》的加载音乐，重温初代游戏的片段以沉浸在“灼烧前”阿斯卡隆的怀旧感中，或者又一次对着我妻子模仿 Grawl 的叫声（Gui-la-la！）。这就是 ArenaNet 的这款大型多人在线角色扮演游戏（MMORPG）在我生命中占据的重要地位。因此，当这家游戏开发商在今年夏天早些时候宣布《激战3》并计划于 2027 年底开启测试时，你们应该能理解我有多么兴奋。

I spent countless hours playing Guild Wars in middle school and high school, and an ungodly amount of time playing Guild Wars 2 with my roommates in college. Guild Wars always felt like the dark horse in the MMORPG world, never reaching the scale and attention of World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI, yet maintaining a massive user base with a cult-like following. (It uniquely did not require a monthly subscription.) You wouldn’t hear anyone talking about it in the school cafeteria like you would the other two titles (I was not a Cool Kid). Still, it always had a grand scale of wonder, adventure, and lore that drew me in—props to my older brother for discovering the game and its many discs, and building a PC to run it.

我在初中和高中时花费了无数时间玩《激战》，大学时又和室友一起在《激战2》中投入了惊人的时间。《激战》系列在 MMORPG 世界中一直像是一匹黑马，虽然从未达到《魔兽世界》或《最终幻想11》那样的规模和关注度，但它始终拥有一批忠实的拥趸和庞大的用户群。（它独特之处在于不需要每月订阅。）你不会像谈论另外两款游戏那样在学校食堂听到有人讨论它（我当时可不是什么“酷小孩”）。尽管如此，它宏大的奇观、冒险和背景故事始终吸引着我——感谢我哥哥发现了这款游戏及其众多的光盘，并组装了一台电脑来运行它。

Guild Wars 3’s setting predates the events of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, which means you don’t really need to know anything about the series to dive in. It marks the first time the franchise is heading to console with a PlayStation 5 release alongside PC. And while developers typically wind down support for predecessor titles ahead of a sequel, ArenaNet plans to maintain both the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 for years to come. (It recently released the original game as Guild Wars Reforged with system enhancements and a mobile port.)

《激战3》的背景设定在《激战》和《激战2》的故事之前，这意味着你不需要了解该系列的任何背景知识就能直接上手。这是该系列首次登陆主机平台，将与 PC 版同步在 PlayStation 5 上发布。虽然开发商通常会在续作推出前缩减对前作的支持，但 ArenaNet 计划在未来几年内继续维护初代《激战》和《激战2》。（他们最近还发布了经过系统增强并支持移动端的《激战：重制版》。）

Details on the game—built on Unreal Engine 5 and in development for 4 years—are limited, but ArenaNet gave me a brief glimpse of early alpha footage showcasing gameplay components that have me excited to jump back into the world of Tyria.

关于这款基于虚幻引擎 5 开发、已制作 4 年的游戏，目前细节还很有限，但 ArenaNet 向我展示了早期的 Alpha 测试片段，其中呈现的游戏机制让我迫不及待地想要重返泰瑞亚世界。

Joy of Movement

移动的乐趣

Gliding is already a movement mechanic in Guild Wars 2, but when you stop and start running, the transitions are awkward and slow. All of that is becoming more fluid in Guild Wars 3, alongside some new range of movements. In some ways, it brings the game closer to an action RPG.

滑翔在《激战2》中已经是一种移动机制，但当你停下并开始奔跑时，动作过渡显得生硬且缓慢。在《激战3》中，这一切变得更加流畅，同时还加入了一些新的移动方式。在某些方面，这让游戏更接近动作 RPG。

You can jump into a ravine, start gliding, and now wall-run to reach your desired destination, all in a series of fluid movements with no awkward transitions, though there is a stamina bar as a limiter. Colin Johanson, ArenaNet’s studio head, says this unlocks “truly expressive and free-formed joy of movement.” Much of this centers on character momentum—using speed, weight, and directional inertia—a philosophy massively multiplayer online games have historically avoided due to network latency and server-client synchronization issues.

你可以跳入峡谷，开始滑翔，现在还可以通过跑墙到达目的地，所有动作一气呵成，没有任何生硬的过渡，尽管体力槽会作为一种限制。ArenaNet 工作室负责人 Colin Johanson 表示，这解锁了“真正具有表现力且自由的移动乐趣”。这很大程度上取决于角色的动量——利用速度、重量和方向惯性——这在历史上是大型多人在线游戏因网络延迟和服务器-客户端同步问题而一直避免采用的理念。

Momentum doesn’t only affect how you get around, but combat as well. For example, you can build up speed to ram into enemies and smash them into cliff walls to stun them—they can do the same to you—or use momentum to kick them off a ledge, King Leonidas-style. (What happens to their loot if they fall off a cliff? ArenaNet hasn’t figured that out just yet.)

动量不仅影响你的移动方式，也影响战斗。例如，你可以积攒速度撞向敌人，将他们撞向悬崖壁使其眩晕——他们也可以对你这样做——或者利用动量将他们踢下悬崖，就像列奥尼达国王那样。（如果他们掉下悬崖，战利品会怎样？ArenaNet 还没想好。）

While the basic movement mechanics are the same across all character classes, each class has a unique spin on it. The Warrior class, for example, can sprint up a wall and use downward momentum to plunge their weapon and slam the ground, causing area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies.

虽然所有职业的基本移动机制相同，但每个职业都有其独特的演绎。例如，战士职业可以冲上墙壁，利用向下的动量俯冲并猛击地面，对附近的敌人造成范围伤害。

I recall enjoying many of the collaborative fighting mechanics when Guild Wars 2 first debuted—like an Elementalist dropping a fire ring on the ground so an ally could shoot arrows through it to inflict burning damage. That’s still a crucial component in GW3.

我记得《激战2》刚推出时，我很喜欢其中的许多协作战斗机制——比如元素使在地上放置一个火环，盟友可以射箭穿过它来造成燃烧伤害。这在《激战3》中依然是一个关键组成部分。

Warriors can angle their shield to act as a launchpad for allies, catapulting them into the air for elevated strikes. Rangers have an ability that creates an ice vortex, and a Warrior can jump in, ride the vortex’s lift high, then plummet down to cause big (icy) damage. Some of these moves are GW3’s new “contextual skills,” which only show up during specific contextual windows. If a Warrior is in the air, that’s when they can use the skill to bomb down and hit the ground with power.

战士可以调整盾牌角度，作为盟友的发射台，将他们弹射到空中进行高空打击。游侠有一种能制造冰旋涡的技能，战士可以跳进去，借助旋涡的升力飞向高空，然后俯冲下来造成巨大的（冰属性）伤害。其中一些动作是《激战3》新的“情境技能”，它们只会在特定的情境窗口中出现。如果战士在空中，他们就可以使用该技能强力轰击地面。

In one encounter against spiders, a Warrior set his weapon on fire, which in turn lit his allies’ weapons. They sliced through the spiders quickly, and the fire also spread through the webs to clear them out. Players can adjust and customize their builds on the fly in the open world, though some build aspects are restricted until they’re back in main hub locations.

在一次对抗蜘蛛的遭遇战中，一名战士点燃了自己的武器，进而点燃了盟友的武器。他们迅速切开了蜘蛛群，火焰还蔓延到蛛网上将其烧毁。玩家可以在开放世界中随时调整和自定义构建，尽管某些构建方面在回到主城区域之前会受到限制。

“Customizing your build to defeat different enemies more easily is also an important part of the Guild Wars franchise,” Johanson says. “It’s one of the key pillars of Guild Wars 1, and we’re bringing it back more heavily in the combat system in Guild Wars 3.”

“自定义构建以更轻松地击败不同敌人也是《激战》系列的重要组成部分，”Johanson 说。“这是《激战1》的关键支柱之一，我们正在《激战3》的战斗系统中更深入地将其带回来。”

Conditions you place on enemies are multiplayer stackable, so if one player starts freezing an enemy, the cold effect builds, and the enemy’s animation slows down; their attacks are slower. As more people put more cold on the enemy, they’ll move slower and slower until they become a block of ice that blocks their moves for a short period. If the enemy is low on health, a character with a knock ability like a Warrior can slam into the ice block and, if it kills the enemy, shatter them into tiny ice cubes, causing damage to nearby foes.

你施加在敌人身上的状态是可以多人叠加的，所以如果一名玩家开始冻结敌人，寒冷效果会累积，敌人的动作会变慢；他们的攻击也会变慢。随着更多人施加寒冷效果，敌人会移动得越来越慢，直到变成一块冰，在短时间内无法行动。如果敌人生命值较低，像战士这样拥有击飞能力的职业可以撞向冰块，如果这能击杀敌人，他们会碎成小冰块，对附近的敌人造成伤害。

There’s lots ArenaNet didn’t talk about in this gameplay showcase, like the spirit mounts from the game’s initial teaser—Johanson says there will be more to share in the future. Also, how will PS5 players, who can’t really take advantage of the game’s text-based chat systems on PC, communicate? But he confirmed that there will be a player-versus-player (PvP) mode, along with “high-trust coordinated dungeon-like experiences.” In general, combat will feature a “heck of a lot less” user interface over the screen than a traditional MMO.

ArenaNet 在这次演示中还有很多内容没有提及，比如游戏最初预告片中的灵魂坐骑——Johanson 表示未来会有更多消息分享。此外，无法像 PC 端那样使用文本聊天系统的 PS5 玩家将如何交流？但他确认游戏将包含玩家对战（PvP）模式，以及“高信任度的协作地下城体验”。总的来说，战斗界面的 UI 将比传统 MMO “少得多”。