At a time when NCsoft intends to expand its activities in the West, the Korean giant has reportedly given the green light to its American subsidiary ArenaNet to launch production of a Guild Wars 3.
We recently mentioned it, like several South Korean groups currently, NCsoft is looking for growth engines outside Korea (more specifically in the West) and one of its most promising Western licenses today is none other than Guild Warsmanaged by its subsidiary ArenaNet. But if we are to believe the South Korean economic media MTN (often well informed about the behind the scenes of the local gaming industry), NCsoft has officially given the green light to the development of a Guild Wars 3 at ArenaNet.
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According to indiscretions relayed by MTN, the inner circle of NCsoft would therefore have “approved the development of Guild Wars 3 after evaluating internal resources [d’ArenaNet] and studied the commercial feasibility of the project”, with regard to the “potential of the license to strengthen competitiveness [de NCsoft] in the North American market. In other words, the Guild Wars license is popular with Western players and the development of a third installment would be part of NCsoft's current strategy to expand its activities in the West.
An unannounced project already in development for several years
And the development of a Guild Wars 3 would probably not be a complete surprise. We know that the ArenaNet teams have been working on a “not yet announced project” for several years already and that this project is based on “license fantasy well established” – without the studio specifying whether the license in question is Guild Wars or a third party license which would have been acquired elsewhere. We now imagine that the project in question could be a prototype of Guild Wars 3 and that this prototype was therefore validated by NCsoft before entering production.
Still, if Guild Wars, then Guild Wars 2, have experienced ups and downs in recent years, the license remains a safe bet in NCsoft's accounts: ArenaNet has found its cruising speed when it comes to the deployment of Guild Wars 2 expansions in the West and the game has also been able to retain its players in China. At a time when Guild Wars 2 has already been in operation for twelve years, continuing to bring the license to life via a third episode does not seem outlandish – especially when NCsoft intends to bet on the West.