A new momentum system

ArenaNet has detailed Guild Wars 3's momentum system, which blends movement and combat abilities so your character keeps flowing instead of stopping between actions.

Revealed behind closed doors

Studio head Colin Johanson walked TechRadar Gaming through the game at Gamescom, covering the story, the open world, combat, and multiplayer design.

MMOs stop and start

Johanson described the usual problem: you dismount and freeze, you stop gliding and freeze, you fire off an ability and freeze again.

“There are no fluid transitions between movement and combat in MMOs”

Momentum carries everywhere

Jump off a mountain, deploy a glider, dive, fly, or wall-run, and your speed carries through all of it instead of resetting at every transition.

“creating a seamless sense of movement you'd expect to see in an action game, rather than an MMORPG”

Falling fast hits harder

A warrior class shown in the preview converts downward momentum into damage. The faster the drop, the bigger the hit and the wider the blast radius.

“based on his velocity or how much downward momentum”

Walls become weapons

The warrior can run up a wall and slam back down for huge damage, turning terrain into part of the attack rather than scenery.

The battlefield fights too

Build up enough momentum and you can knock enemies into walls to stun and damage them. Johanson calls reading the terrain part of the combat.

“Momentum also impacts battlefield control”

Beta lands in 2027

There is no release date yet. A beta is set for Fall 2027, with the game coming to PC and PlayStation 5.