Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet has announced that it has delayed the release of the game on Steam to focus on the game’s next expansion, End of Dragons. Guild Wars 2 was initially released with its own launcher back in 2012 and last August, ArenaNet announced that the game would also finally be available on Steam. But while players using the original launcher as well as those on end up playing via Steam will be playing on the same servers, they won’t be able to transfer their data between the two platforms. This means players who already have an existing account but want to play on Steam will have to create a new account and start over.
Guild Wars 2 isn’t the first game or MMORPG that eventually made itself available on Steam. Last year, Destiny 2 made the transition from Blizzard’s Battle.net platform to Steam after developer Bungie split with Activision. Several games have also been made available on Steam recently after being exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a year from their initial release. Remedy Entertainment’s award-winning action-adventure game Control was launched on Steam last August, while Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds was released on Steam just last month.
Those interested in trying out Guild Wars 2 on Steam will have to wait a bit longer though as ArenaNet has put an indefinite hold on the game’s release on the platform. In a post on the Guild Wars 2 website, the developer noted that the overwhelming excitement fans have shown toward the game’s upcoming End of Dragons expansion has led the studio to decide to focus all of its efforts towards its development. The studio did not give a new date for the game’s release on Steam and with End of Dragons expected to release sometime in 2021, it might be quite a while before players will be able to download and play the game on Valve’s platform.
Apart from the End of Dragons expansion, ArenaNet is also working on the next chapter of the game’s Icebrood Saga, the game’s current content update season. The studio announced that the first trailer for The Icebrood Saga: Champions is set to release later this week. Champions will be The Icebrood Saga’s finale and will feature multiple chapters that is expected to conclude the game’s current season and transition the game into the End of Dragons expansion.
It isn’t surprising that ArenaNet is having difficulty juggling multiple projects at the same time. Early last year, the studio reportedly laid off a large number of its employees and recently laid off several others as well. Their reduced manpower may be making it difficult for the company to divide its efforts on developing Guild Wars 2’s upcoming expansions, the game’s release on Steam, as well as other projects the studio may be working on.
Source: ArenaNet