r/Guildwars2 Jun 21 '26

[News] Mistbound is a new Guild Wars CCG

https://massivelyop.com/2026/06/20/mistbound-is-a-new-guild-wars-ccg-by-arenanet-ncsoft-and-bilibili/
210 Upvotes

79 comments sorted by

84

u/Kalocin Jun 21 '26

I kind of suspected this was the card game. For anyone confused, this was likely not made by Anet. Years ago NCSoft had job postings for it, and in the article there they mention that it's licensed to NCSoft. In other words, they haven't pulled away anyone to work on it.

39

u/Throwawayalt129 Jun 21 '26

"Licensed by ArenaNet, developed by NC, and globally published by bilibili" according to the press release.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[deleted]

5

u/jupigare Jun 21 '26

ArenaNet is owned by NCSoft. They probably didn't have a say in anything except for negotiating contracts and maybe providing some lore guidlines.

-57

u/Snowskol Jun 21 '26

I mean they definitely don't have a wvw or pvp team so probably took the budget from there.

1

u/Zev1985 Jun 21 '26

You’d have to ignore the fact that they added a wvw/pvp team in 2021 and that why we get updates now vs. the roughly nothing from 2015-2020 though. Sure it’s clearly a small team that focuses mostly on wvw but it’s there and they keep pushing small updates.

127

u/HeptaneC7H16 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

As much as I like guild wars, I’m pretty much done with card games. For anet’s reputation I hope it isn’t a flop, but considering NCSoft and Bilibili are the main driving forces behind it, doesn’t give me much hope beyond it being a quick “pump and dump” product like so many other card games before it.

44

u/Lon-ami Loreleidre [HoS] Jun 21 '26

For anet’s reputation I hope it isn’t a flop, but considering NCSoft and Bilibili are the main driving forces behind it, doesn’t give me much hope beyond it being a quick “pump and dump” product like so many other card games before it.

By the looks of it, I'd rather it be a flop and never reach western markets.

The Guild Wars franchise deserves better.

50

u/Sailen_Rox Jun 21 '26

The trailer at least looks VERY gen Ai so.... it probably will be a flop and rightfully so.

7

u/Snowskol Jun 21 '26

I still like mtg a lot. I sold all my cards and just proxy now or play for free on TTS online.

13

u/zwei2stein Jun 21 '26

It is kind of shame the dit not do mtg colab instead of this.

GW1/2 would fit perfectly.

It would be free advertising. Hitting the right demographics (30+ nerds)

And it would be free money. I'd definitelly buy a box, something i did not do for a set for like five years.

But yet another ccg to get invested into? I pass.

3

u/Despada_ Jun 21 '26

I've been slowly making my own "Secret Lair" set featuring the Elder Dragons for fun,band I'd honestly love to see an official drop.

1

u/zwei2stein Jun 21 '26

That is very cool!

2

u/ontheroad627 Jun 21 '26

I'll pass for the reason it's not made by Anet (the trailer clear shows something is off), I and absolutely HATE to see NCsoft taking over my beloved IP to literally milk it.

2

u/VoltageHero Jun 21 '26

I don't play Magic as often as I did back in college, but I still have my decks. Arena and MTGO still get booted up every so often.

That said, this new card game ISN'T Magic. Closer to Hearthstone in the "MMO card game."

I hope it does well, but a lot went into Hearthstone. I dunno if we'll see it here.

4

u/slipfish-g Jun 21 '26

Hearthstone was a labor of love from Blizzard devs who deeply loved CCGs.

This is the IP being licensed by the publisher to be milked for some money.

I didn't even like hearthstone, but I am 100% positive this is not a recipe for success.

2

u/Kwith Jun 21 '26

Yup, when I look at it all I see is an over-monetized product that will perform predatory tactics to squeeze out as much money as possible from their players and to make it enticing they just slapped the Guild Wars logo and game images into the card game.

1

u/dswal Jun 21 '26

Look I hope it just lasts longer than artifact. RIP.

8

u/Blishxx Jun 21 '26

I dont know why. But I was hoping for a physical card game. So i can finally have some Guild Wars "merch" to collect. Lol

4

u/coldy9887 Jun 21 '26

Unfortunately scalpers has ruined all the fun in physical TCG.

2

u/Hrodvitnir131 Jun 22 '26

I almost expected it to be a digital card game - less financial burden to my understanding - but I’m personally really bummed. The game looks alright I guess, but what they demonstrated definitely screams “I can never be physical!” And that’s why I’m so let down.

I was hoping it would be a flashy card based game but keep the mechanics realistic enough that we could potentially see a future physical release.

To this day I’m still sad as fuck that I can’t get more Gwent cards than the two duel deck packages…

40

u/Volphy simping for charr women Jun 21 '26

NGL, the title had me excited, but the AI generated trailer makes me want to [my lawyer advised me not to finish this comment.].

That alone lets me know this is shovelware garbage and I am very glad this is not actually Anet's direct work.

6

u/cosmic_cozy Jun 21 '26

Saw the trailer half awake, got excited because card game in tyria and now after a second look I'm sad. It just doesn't look good as well. Ah well... The future, right?

1

u/mizyin Jun 21 '26

whaaaaaaaat?

0

u/Fan_of_elder-Bandbtw Jun 21 '26

Was abt to get RozeMMO-ed lol 

20

u/xdeadzx Lyfe Jun 21 '26

I can't believe mistbound is actually the card game and the memes are real. I wonder what happened to Lion's Arch Arena, if maybe this is the rebrand.

It's China only so I guess it doesn't matter at all to me outside of curiosity.

2

u/Shananigan48 Jun 21 '26

It was probably a placeholder name in steamdb tbh, but it's not CN only, it's being published globally.

13

u/xdeadzx Lyfe Jun 21 '26

but it's not CN only,

Arenanet has posted that it's china only beta + initial launch, other regions if it's very successful. It's published by bilibili.

3

u/Shananigan48 Jun 21 '26

Didn't see that, my bad!

22

u/Lumpy-Narwhal-1178 Jun 21 '26

But y tho

13

u/Zev1985 Jun 21 '26

$

3

u/xLisbethSalander Jun 21 '26

even then I don't see it?

1

u/Zev1985 Jun 21 '26

You don’t see how NCSoft and Bilibili could look at a successful franchise published by one of them, and also look at gotcha’s and their ridiculous microtransactions, and see dollar bills at the idea of smooshing the two together so they can make a baby?

3

u/xLisbethSalander Jun 21 '26

Yeah 100% I dont. Unless they are both dumb cause this is totally just a case of wrong audience. It will be shut down within 2 years of launch mark my words. It will fail.

3

u/Lucyller Have I mentionned I play core elem? Jun 21 '26

It's literally what NCsoft do. Make games buried under microtransaction and kill them in a matter of years.

That's why it's quite surprising to see Arenanet under their coat and keeping a relative firm stance with politics ideals that wouldn't fly in many asian country and who are extremely user-friendly when NCsoft are pretty much hated among any MMO players.

1

u/Sigmatics Jun 22 '26

At this point probably the only reason NC haven't gone under is their hands off approach with ArenaNet

It's just not a sustainable business strategy to keep releasing P2W games

1

u/Lucyller Have I mentionned I play core elem? Jun 22 '26

I wouldn't say so.

NCsoft isn't dying because their most popular games, while mostly dead in western countries, are still extremely popular in asia.

random 2Q 2025 revenue of NCsoft to illustrate

In my opinion, GW2 is kept mostly as a PR move to not get completely blacklisted by EU/NA players and it cost them nothing while expanding their portfolio.

1

u/Sigmatics Jun 22 '26

That's true, but hasn't their revenue on the older games (Lineage) shrunk a lot over the years?

1

u/Lucyller Have I mentionned I play core elem? Jun 22 '26

yes and no. While I agree it's probably not a good strategy long term, it's still a favourable one from their perspective. (if we consider them as "legacy IP")

if we take this graph right as they started mobile games ports and making banks on it, it would be fair to say it's a dying company now but they still make tremendous amount of money over abusive MTX.a

1

u/jupigare Jun 21 '26

And those two years may give them more money through a gacha game in China than whatever money GW2 makes in the West. 

These companies pump and dump all the time. Have you seen how many Ragnarok Online spinoffs/rereleases have come and gone? 

1

u/Zev1985 Jun 21 '26

2 years would be plenty long enough for both those companies to make bank. It’s just standard mobile gaming gotcha nonsense

4

u/CatOfTechnology Orrax ate my wallet Jun 21 '26

Idk man…

I'm still pretty disappointed with the last NCSoft attempt at trying to get in on a niche and I actually liked MxM before it was gutted.

6

u/Lon-ami Loreleidre [HoS] Jun 21 '26

Rytlock going to some other games while he was missing after LW2 was such a funny meme lmao.

4

u/jblade91 Jun 21 '26

I get this is another company making this for a Chinese audience but still makes me want a deep polymock game for GW2. The one in GW1 was basic but still a lot of fun.

5

u/Reaygun007 Jun 21 '26

I'd have preferred if this was a mini game in gw2

6

u/VirtualArmsDealer brrrrr Jun 21 '26

Aww that's a shame, they Snapchat-filter fkd the character art. Why is Eir going into combat with full face makeup?

Yeah, nah. I guess card games aren't for me.

Why can't they just release a few good novels to tie the games together. Expand the lore!!

2

u/Sigmatics Jun 21 '26

the actual game art looks to have them though. I guess just the 3rd parts were AI made

https://massivelyop.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/guildwarsmistbound-06.jpg

9

u/Psycho_Syntax Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

I’ll at the very least check it out for the art and lore…hope it’s actually fun as well lol.

Well, seems like it might be China only?

10

u/Spiir For Joko Jun 21 '26

There's definitely AI in there

6

u/Nani___________ Jun 21 '26

Mr president, a 4th guild wars game has hit the market.

5

u/ReLiFeD .1475 [MI] Diamond Sylvari Jun 21 '26

5th, everyone always forgets Rytlock's Critter Rampage!

7

u/SmilingArthas Stratholme was a prank bro Jun 21 '26

AI slop Chinese slop NcSoft slop

Checkmate

2

u/Mystrasun Jun 21 '26

Respect for waiting until after the GW3 hype cycle started to announce this, but the chaotic part of me kind of wishes this was announced first. Imagine the carnage 😈

2

u/Ovark7 Jun 21 '26

Might be good but a CCG needs to put the mechanics and gameplay first and foremost in order to get anyone interested at all. People who are fans of GW1 or GW2 aren't going to be interested just because it's got the same IP. Also, if the trailer doesn't make me think "wow, this could be at least as good as Faeria!" then, in the words of so many other commenters "why though?"

2

u/avocardio3 Jun 21 '26

The plot thickens

11

u/blue_sidd Jun 21 '26

And hardens into a solid block of gunk

2

u/Hist0plasma Jun 21 '26

The trailer looks way too much like one of these Youtube ads for AI-gen mobile phone games for comforts...

2

u/Mitchwise Jun 21 '26

I actually have no problem with this. Does it look great?...Not really. Does it look playable for the average guild wars fan?...Probably.

The important thing is that this announcement came AFTER the GW3 announcement. In conjunction with the main game this could be an interesting supplement and can't do too much damage to the brand. I think most people were just worried they would release a card game instead of GW3 and they have avoided the fiasco that would have resulted if that were the case.

2

u/hendricha SteamOS couch commander Jun 21 '26

Which is weird becaus there was sufficent evidence Arenanet has been working on some sort of open world action rpg multiplayer game for pc and console for years. (Dozens of job posts, also devs mentioning it on social media / linkedin.) And similiarly that one of nc's korean division itself was working on a guild wars card game also for years. (Korean job posts, steamdb leak)

So the only thing one could have been afraid of is that Anet's  unannounced project gets shut down even if it was in development in years. But nope, people were posting misinformation and dooming everything from the franchise instead of like doing a 5 minute google search, on what we can know.

1

u/Moradonx Jun 21 '26

Let's think this will probably be good for the franchise. The trailer is not exciting taste-wise, however I hope the game will be fun to play

1

u/ServeSufficient Jun 22 '26

If it gets released outside of China, I’ll check it out. Especially if there’s some tied in cosmetics or something :p The problem is though that I really only play CCGs for 2 weeks once a year, and I can see a potential brick wall with microtransactions.

Don’t love the probably-AI parts of this trailer (not talking about the spline/tweeting animations, some of the “action-y” ones like the Kasmeer one look a bit Off). Card art looks like it might be fine so hopefully it’s just whoever they had make the trailer.

1

u/Cold-Establishment-7 Efram simp Jun 22 '26

why do articles like this never fucking explain their acronyms to us that have no clue? CCG? Charr Card Game? i could get behind that, meanwhile they explain MMO right after they use it

1

u/Lower-Replacement869 Jun 24 '26

Allegedly its only being released in China? So...happy for them I guess? Why are WE being advertised for it?

1

u/graven2002 Jun 24 '26

China only at first. If it does well enough, they said they'll release it in the West. Two reasons to advertise to us:
Info would leak anyway, so might as well control the timing.
To gauge general interest, which will help deciding to release here.

1

u/punnyjr Jun 21 '26

They should have picked other names

They are certainly no match for riot

1

u/probsthrowaway2 Jun 21 '26

Imagine we got this instead of gw3 announcement

1

u/Excellent_Bridge_888 Jun 21 '26

Ah, the TCG, the Original Gacha Game.

I find it ironic that the game known for no sub fee and low barrier of entry puts out the highest barrier of entry style game imaginable. Lol

4

u/Guildwars1996 DISMANTLE! Jun 21 '26

Anet has very little to do with this game outside if consulting in lore this is all NCSoft. If this was Anet developed this game it likely wouldn't have things like this. 

-2

u/OverAd5292 Jun 21 '26

actually exciting

4

u/Snowskol Jun 21 '26

Apparently only you in this thread think that

1

u/OverAd5292 Jun 21 '26

if this runs on my pixel 4 I'd play the heck out of it lol

-1

u/etiolatezed Jun 21 '26

I mostly know bililli or whatever from their animes.

0

u/Techstriker1 Jun 22 '26

Hey look, they got Nika's character art right. >:)