We’re taking it back old school once again, only this time it’s old school in a new school way: We’re playing some old school Guild Wars 1 (aka Guild Wars Reforged) in a new way with the recently released version on mobile! I think that counts as new school. Do the kids still say old school? Is new school even an expression? Doesn’t matter. The concept of playing an MMO on a mobile device isn’t new anyway, but playing GW1 on my phone – that’s madness.
At least, once upon a time, it was madness, right? Back when it launched, I’m fairly sure my rig couldn’t even handle the game’s high-res setting, much less the thought of taking a game of this caliber mobile. How quaint that seems now, but it is the actual truth. I might be able to dig out some old screenshots of the game from when I first ran it on my 15 in. x 15 in. flat HP monitor. I really thought I was hot stuff back then. Now I know I was – but that’s beside the point!
Originally, I didn’t really expect to find myself logging into GW1 on my phone much – I’ve now got this beast of a machine, after all! But then I was AFK for a full week, and since it did just launch a few weeks ago, I found myself finally logging in. So let’s talk a little bit about GW Reforged on mobile already.
First up, it’s completely free to download and get the launcher running from the Google Play Store. That’s refreshing considering that if I wanted to play on my Steam Deck (without modding it, anyway), I’d have to rebuy the game through Steam, which I’m not wanting to do. After the download, it’s as simple as logging in with my existing ArenaNet account to find that all my characters are right there ready to rock and roll. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
But as I’m MassivelyOP’s Fight or Kite columnist, I’m really here for one thing and one thing alone: Random Arenas. If there’s one topic I’ve discussed and over expressed ad nauseam, it’s my love of GW1’s Random Arenas. It’s PvP in its purest, more perfect form. So seeing my Dervish boy standing tall with his scythe in hand is a sight for sore eyes.
The interface and controls are the biggest changes. Movement with a virtual d-pad functions like you’d expect from most mobile games. As soon as your thumb hits the general area on the left side of the screen, it registers as a thumb pad, and you can WASD your way around. You can still tap to move around the map as well, but only an insane person would do that.
Your hotbar of eight skills and your autoattack are grouped rather nicely in the bottom right corner. I really appreciate the targeting button that lets you tap it to move from one to the next in succession as well. It seems to recognize only the choices that are visible on your screen, so that’s welcome too. I was always a fan of using a hotkey to target the closest enemy and then tabbing to the next in sequence until I found whom I wanted to bash, and this functions about the same.
ArenaNet has done a really solid job of organizing the menus and mostly making them usable on mobile too. It’d be an exaggeration to say that the UI isn’t pretty busy and crowded, but what can you do really. You’ve got only the slate you’ve got… unless you’ve got a foldable!
In fact, I think it was MOP’s Carlo who pointed out to me that playing GW on a foldable is pretty nice, and he wasn’t kidding. It really makes a huge difference from a visual and even gameplay perspective. The UI elements move further towards the edges and give a lot more room for playing. It’s simply less cramped and just easier to use. There are options in the menu for reducing the size and scaling the UI a bit, but it’s such a minor adjustment compared to actually opening up the UI entirely. (Check out the comparison pic below!)
When I was attempting to review my set skills and remember what all of the different abilities were, it took me a second to realize that I could collapse and expand the drawer to view the full text description on the skills. It was a bit awkward to scroll and select the ones I wanted to use, too. It’s not so bad that I couldn’t work with it, but I think I’ll most likely pick and set up the skills on PC and just use them on mobile.
In actual gameplay, though, everything ran really smoothly. Running around, targeting, and popping off skills all worked exactly as you’d want them to. In the slate mode, it’s a bit tougher to see exactly which opponent is which class since all the UI is fairly shrunk down, but unfolded I found it was a bit easier. Still not as quick as PC, but serviceable.
Now, I said I was AFK this past week, and that’s due to some work circumstances that saw me traveling around the country – which meant time in and around airports. Guild Wars Reforged really came through in the clutch for me when I was bored. Audiobooks and music can get me only so far.
While I was sitting at the gate waiting on my plane or even just waiting for take off, it was the quick gameplay experience that I am often looking for when I’m on my phone. I found myself really enjoying whipping out the game, joining a round or two of RA, and then slamming it back shut to continue about my life. When it comes to really playing through some quests and such, it’s fine, but I’d still prefer to be at my desk for those things. Even with RA, I’m not taking this especially seriously since I might need to shut down before long. It did drain my battery fairly fast, but my phone is getting long in the tooth, so most graphic-intensive games and activities tend to draw its power down quickly, and I can’t really say whether the battery drain is a “me thing” or a “GW Reforged thing” – or both.
Overall, Guild Wars Reforged on mobile is a really great implementation and a fantastic way to get back into the game. Not only is it a free client download in the app store, but it also performs really well. I’ll admit that over the last few years, I would poke back into GW1 on occasion for some nostalgic PvP, but until now I wasn’t planning on playing it especially often. I just don’t tend to really care to go back to old games despite new servers or fresh this or quick leveling that. It just doesn’t catch my attention.
But quick and easy access to the best MMO PvP? That’s something I can continue to play.
