I swear this is not turning into a Guild Wars blog, but it’s just been on my mind a lot with all that’s been happening, and the nostalgia has been hitting hard lately.

When it was announced that Guild Wars would come to mobile devices, I thought it must be an April Fools joke. Then it showed up for pre-registration on Google Play, and now it’s installed on my device.

When I was 16 and had my 2nd gen iPod Touch, this would have been my absolute dream. If I had Guild Wars on some portable device back then, I would likely have spent most of my breaks in school farming items. Good thing that was not the case, my grades would’ve suffered!

This won’t be a full on review, but more of a first impressions and opinion from me. That being said, let’s see how that went for me…

The First Look was Not a Good Look

On release day I could not test the game at all. I always keep the mission map open on PC, which covers the entire screen on mobile – and due to the buggy title bar that was definitely not meant to be there, I could not close it. And I was not committed enough on the day to actually boot up my PC for this.

After that initial disappointment, I logged in with Google to create a free-to-play, ad-supported account, which let me experience the Prophecies intro cutscene and half a minute of gameplay, before I tapped the skill bar (a skill square?) and softlocked myself on an empty skill screen. Well, I didn’t get an ad on either of the two loading screens, at least.

So, that’s how far I got before giving up for the day. Luckily, I’m a patient man* and just waited for an update, because launch day is always rough to start playing any game. A day or two and one small update later, I got to see the proper experience for the first time.

*Disclaimer: I am not actually a patient man.

Patch Day, Play Day, Hooray!

I’m sorry for that headline.

What I noticed immediately was the occasional, massive frame-rate dip, despite the game running at a smooth and stable 60-ish fps most of the time. I’m quite sure it’s just my phone being silly, as a quick test on a more modern, mid-range tablet ran a lot better despite the tablet having lower CPU and GPU power on paper. But people with older devices that seem like they should run this old game just fine might be a little disappointed by the performance.

Visually, it’s probably what you would expect from a 20 year old PC game: It looks decent, and for veterans it will be very nostalgic. If your phone is better than mine (which is very likely), you can expect a solid 60fps and about the same graphic fidelity you’d see when playing this on PC. Just a bit smaller.

Classic UI, Modern Input Methods

I don’t do a lot of mobile gaming, so my opinion is from the point of view of an oldschool Guild Wars player. First thing I noticed: The compass was moved to the left. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand why, because space is extremely tight on these devices. But it still threw me off because I’m so used to glancing at the top right corner to avoid unwanted aggro.

Controls That Mostly Work, Unless They Don’t

The general control scheme is alright and pretty much what you know and expect from mobile games: A virtual analog stick appears when touching the left side of the screen and moves you around, while swiping anywhere else controls the camera. I do like how the skill and attack buttons are placed, the two by two layout is actually not too bad.

What is surprisingly bad but also incredibly important: The skill menu and targeting buttons. When I tried to change my build around, the categories kept opening and closing, dragging a skill I would lose it on the way and had to try again. While the UI layout is fine, the interaction feels unfinished (and most likely is, due to the usual release time crunch).

The same goes for the targeting buttons: Trying to switch targets or targeting the closest enemy, which is arguably as much part of the core gameplay as the eight skills of any build, often felt unresponsive, like it’s just not working. I would have to all but stand right next to hostile enemies, and neither the arrows nor the closest target button would seem to work reliably. You can tap the enemies on screen, which might target that enemy, or it might make you move somewhere behind them, if you have click (tap) to move enabled.

I’m honestly not sure if I just fat fingered and didn’t hit the buttons, if my phone dropped the inputs for some reason, or if it actually was not working right.

A Timeless Interface, or Slightly Outdated?

In general I have to say the UI is quite alright. While the layout is obviously somewhat different from PC for some panels, it will feel very familiar, if a bit weird, to anyone who has ever spent time in the game. This can be both a good and a bad thing, I suppose, as some things feel crammed on mobile or could use a bit of cleanup. Some parts certainly need to be optimized, but I have to say I don’t care as much for the Rune Trader panel as I do the essentials of the core gameplay. Which just aren’t quite there yet.

One of Guild Wars’ greatest features, the ability to ping and draw on the compass, is still there, and I’m sure people will make great use of it to draw beautiful dicks, uhhh, I mean art! But no, really, it’s such an intuitive way to easily show your group where to go, I wouldn’t want to miss it, and I’m surprised it didn’t return in Guild Wars 2. Well, actually, I have an idea why it didn’t return. You can’t really moderate a drawing, can you… 🐔🥜

More Quirky Stuff, and Not in a Good Way

Some UI issues I noticed include the new class icons (which I generally like, but I found quite hard to make out at first) randomly scaling up when I added a hero to my party, and adrenaline skills permanently blinking as if adrenaline was about to run out while in an explorable area.

Missing Features, or at Least Missing an Explanation

What I could not figure out is a way to call targets. On PC, you can hold CTRL and press the space bar to call out your current target, and others can press T to target that same enemy quickly, too. This is essential for higher level play, so I’m not sure if it’s there and I’m missing it, or if that slipped between the cracks. Then again, you probably won’t (or shouldn’t) be doing high-level play on your phone, anyways.

Another UI oddity is the Exit button, which was added to Guild Wars Reforged on PC, and is nowhere to be seen on mobile. The best you can do to “quit” the game is logging out, but you have to go to your recent apps and manually kill the game, otherwise the music just keeps playing in the background. Weird.

Tablet Sized Gameplay: Bigger Sometimes IS Better

Due to the nature of oldschool MMOs, there is a lot of information on screen. Naturally, this is a lot easier to deal with on a tablet, and I honestly like it quite a bit better than playing on my phone.

While still not optimal, the additional space obviously allows you to see a bit more of what’s around you. I could see myself playing like this while on vacation, if I didn’t have my Steam Deck with me. But like most games, physical keys or buttons still beat a touch screen.

Surprisingly Tolerable Ads for Free-to-Players

I did play for a bit on the free-to-play account to see how bad the advertising was. Well, it’s generally good news: As promised before release, ads are only triggered on map changes, but not every time you go through a portal.

Going in and out of portals, and traveling between outposts for around five minutes, I only got a single ad on the first time I exited town, so it seems quite alright, unlike many other mobile games. Especially if you’re farming (or dying a lot in missions) it would be awful to see an ad on every single loading screen, so I’m quite happy they did not set it up this way.

While I was hoping for unobtrusive banner ads on the loading screens, you will be getting fullscreen ads that may slightly delay you loading onto the map. Some were just still images you can dismiss after around five seconds, and others were videos with sound, which I obviously find to be the worst kind. But even the longest video was only around a ten second wait before I could skip it, and all the videos I encountered had a mute button, as well.

Every ad I saw could be dismissed with a clearly visible X in the top right corner after a short delay – no tiny, nearly invisible buttons. I daresay this is among the least predatory and intrusive use of ads I have seen for a mobile game, and I think that’s a good decision. It won’t immediately turn away people looking to try the game out.

Keep in mind that your mileage may vary, depending on your region advertising could be more aggressive.

Nostalgia Glasses, Oldschool vs. Mobile Gaming, and Little Imperfections

Here’s my bottom line: It’s absolutely good enough for some nostalgic and relaxed story missions, farming, or just checking in on your guild while you’re stuck at work. For me, it’s 15 years too late, and owning a Steam Deck makes this all but superfluous.

However: It’s a pretty good idea to give people a way to hop back on their old, favorite MMO, while also bringing a new influx of players, since mobile gaming is arguably one of the largest markets out there. If nothing else, the ads and campaign sales will definitely help pay for the servers a few years longer, and will hopefully pay for the work 2weeks is putting in.

Touch Controls vs. the Rest of the World

There’s one potential caveat, in my eyes: Mobile and controller players are (intentionally) not marked in the game, which is generally a good thing, since it helps prevent overzealous “mouse and keyboard are the only right way” players from avoiding people on mobile outright.

However, a mobile touch interface is arguably much, much worse than either keyboard or controller input. I fear some hardcore players might start blaming potential mobile players for bad performance, kicking anyone they suspect of playing on such a device – even if that person is simply still learning the game on PC, or slower to respond in chat because English isn’t their first language. You could probably do nothing wrong at all and still be called a “filthy mobile player,” or something similar, which would suck.

I hope a few theoretical, unfriendly players will not turn away the new ones. That would probably be more of an issue for high-end, endgame content or PvP anyway, if at all. Let’s put our faith in the nice and helpful part of the community, of which I’ve also seen a lot more in my many years with the game.

One Last Bug for the Road

Just had to have one more thing happen. While taking screenshots for this post, I came across another bug, because I got the special edition Guild Wars 2 glowing armor on my Dervish. (To be clear: that’s a joke, and I really hope they do not add new cosmetics like that to the game.)

Let it suffice to say that Guild Wars on mobile devices still has quite a few rough edges and needs a bit more work to be a true five-star version of a classic. That being said, nothing here is completely game-breaking, and I can see the potential for a solid mobile client that could even draw more people to the PC version as well, which would be great for the game overall.

As it is, I would give it around four out of five stars. It’s completely free for players who already play on PC, and so light on advertising that it’s absolutely worth trying out. The login button for Steam players is still being worked on, and should be there soon™️.

So, I’ll see you on Embark Beach, everyone – whether you’re playing on mobile, PC, or your brand new Steam Machine.

Oh, and since you’ve taken your time to read to the end, a little tip: Before 13 July 2026, if you own a Samsung device and join or use the Samsung Members App, you can get a three-pack of Mercenary Hero slots, which will allow you to take your other characters along as Heroes! If your partners, parents, or friends give your their code they don’t need, you can even use a second one to get six slots. Maybe even a third for up to eight, I only got one additional code from a friend.

You won’t need to play or even install the game on a Samsung device, you just need to log into the Samsung Members app. To clarify, this isn’t sponsored in any way at all, and I fully support you using a throwaway account for this and uninstalling the app afterwards. Don’t give all your data to all these big companies, they get enough of that without us volunteering. But Mercenary Heroes are cool.