Already a big, big game in and of itself, fantasy open-world adventure Crimson Desert's going to continue to grow. According to a lead from developer Pearl Abyss, we can expect substantial updates as long as players are enjoying the continent of Pywel.

Being one of the most popular games of the year thus far, Crimson Desert's done quite well for itself. Commenting on that momentum, Will Powers, the PR and marketing director at Pearl Abyss, tells Dexerto that updates will keep happening "as long as there's demand for it."

Essentially, he says, the studio views the game similar to its other major release, the MMO Black Desert Online. "This is a model that gamers aren't used to, of a premium game giving consistent and free content post-launch," Powers says.

It's all in service of keeping Crimson Desert in the charts for concurrent players, always providing fans with more to do and see. This, in turn, creates organic marketing that draws in more people who wish to see what the fuss is about, or catch a glint of an interesting addition.

"Having continued support and continued content both rewards your community and the people that have invested time in it, as well as doing free marketing without having to spend it elsewhere. So you're spending it on adding more content to the game instead of spending it on advertising," Powers adds.

As of now, the roadmap leads us up to September, with a healthy cadence of improvements coming for the main story as well as combat, cross-saving and more. Pearl Abyss is working on DLC too, which it teases will be, "a meaningful addition to your journey."

It seems we can expect this rigor to continue. If Kliff's popularity remains steady, so shall these updates too.

Be sure to read our Crimson Desert review to find out why it's one of the most popular new games for 2026.

Amid a major "reset" for Xbox under new CEO Asha Sharma, Game Pass prices have dropped dramatically in recent months, following what was apparently a blistering blow back from October's 50% subscription price hike. During a talk at Summer Game Fest 2026, hosted by The Game Business' Christopher Dring and attended by GamesRadar+, Xbox's chief strategy officer Matthew Ball shared a shocking insight into the negative impact Game Pass suffered following that price increase: apparently, "millions of subscribers" were lost.

The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley took to Twitter to share this small snippet from Ball's SGF talk, in which the Xbox exec reportedly attributed this mass exodus directly to the October price jump. Prices are increasing, well, everywhere, but the gaming industry has been hit particularly hard with inflation and US economic policy driving price jumps at Nintendo, PlayStation, and Valve, but even within that context, the 50% increase for Game Pass subscriptions was particularly egregious and seemed to be a breaking point for a good many.

Last month, Sharma wrote in a note to Xbox employees that "growth slowed down and subscriber loss accelerated after the pricing and SKU changes last year," and that the Game Pass price drop was "a good first step" in righting the ship. As CEOs of massive companies are wont to do, Sharma didn't and hasn't shared specifics on the big plan to course-correct the Xbox brand after months of bad PR, but told employees they will "have to outwork the problem in front of us in our path to restore durable growth."

One part of the plan that we can see in plain view is Xbox's new embrace of exclusives, with Gears of War: E-Day ditching PS5 for full-on, permanent Xbox console exclusivity. While previously confirmed multiplatform games like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Avowed will still release on PS5 as planned, and live-service Xbox games will stay multiplatform, first-party single-player games will be "a case-by-case" situation.

In the meantime, here are the best Xbox games you can play right now.

I truly can't believe they're doing it. ArenaNet is making Guild Wars 3. Unlike every other live-service game and MMO around right now, determined to shamble on as a "platform" into eternity, Guild Wars 2 is making room for a third game the way Guild Wars did before it. Even so, ArenaNet affirmed its dedication to supporting GW2 beyond the launch of GW3—they're doing it all. I've collected everything we know so far about Guild Wars 3 ahead of its first planned betas in 2027.

Is there a Guild Wars 3 release date?

The first beta for Guild Wars 3 will be in fall 2027, but there's no release window announced yet. For reference, the first closed beta tests for Guild Wars 2 began less than a year before it launched.

It's hard to say if we should expect the same timeline for Guild Wars 3, but in its breakdown on what to expect for the future of Guild Wars 2 (more on that below), ArenaNet mentioned a time frame of "the next 18 months," referring to improvements it would be making to GW2 before GW3. That would put us in December 2027, which is still pretty soon after the first beta tests are supposed to begin in autumn. Without being able to pin a timeline on it, it definitely seems like ArenaNet isn't planning to dawdle on Guild Wars 3.

Guild Wars 3 platforms

For the first time in the series, Guild Wars 3 will launch both on PC and on PlayStation 5. What that means so far is that ArenaNet is focusing on action-RPG combat and controls that work for both gamepad and keyboard & mouse. As someone who does actually enjoy playing with a gamepad at my PC, color me curious.

Will there be a subscription?

Nope, the Guild Wars series has always been a buy-to-play model and ArenaNet has confirmed that there won't be a subscription this time either. It also won't have any battlepasses "because we think players are sick of those too," studio head Colin Johanson told IGN.

Guild Wars 3 trailers

The reveal trailer for Guild Wars 3 really leans into the "joy of movement" that ArenaNet has been emphasizing. You can see a character riding their mount and wall-running (mountain running?) which is the bulk of what's shown aside from introducing the fabric and embroidery visual themes that are also used in that ribbon-y new logo. Lotta flag imagery happening here.

Guild Wars 3 gameplay

Guild Wars 3 story and setting

Guild Wars 3 takes place 1,200 years before the events of the original Guild Wars and is set in Orr, "a vast wilderness frontier imbued with the world’s magic." We'll all be playing as a Vaelwarden, a member of an adventurer's guild that wants to protect the nature entities called Vael spirits, each with our own larger spirit mount called a Seeker. Our own adventurer's guild is in conflict (perhaps a war, even) with others over how to protect or exploit the Vael spirits. That's right, we're going back to the guild wars.

How will it play differently from Guild Wars 2?

Guild Wars 3 will lean into playing as an "action-adventure MMORPG," ArenaNet says, with combat designed to play on both gamepad and keyboard & mouse. Anet has emphasized GW3's "one-of-a-kind movement system that transfers your momentum between modes of travel" which include gliding, riding, jumping, and wall-running.

It also said: "As players seamlessly transition between various movement modes, they can harness their speed and turn it into bigger damage and impact when fighting their foes." Guild Wars 2 already has so much interesting use of movement with its mounts, dodging, and flying, and it sounds like GW3 is going well above and beyond that by factoring mounts into combat.

Lastly, Guild Wars 3's website says its combat will involve "strategic skill use, positioning, and movement—where action RPG combat meets Guild Wars build-making." To me, that sounds like it's definitely diverting from the hotbar mashing style of combat I've grown so tired of in MMOs. I'm well interested in a system that prioritizes skill context over cooldown timers.

Guild Wars 3 playable races

ArenaNet hasn't confirmed the exact details on playable races (or classes) but, based on the initial concept art reveals, it sure looks like we'll be playing as thousand-year-in-the-past versions of:

• Humans: Every RPG's vanilla option, you can still play them in GW3.
• Asura: The small but brainy folks first playable in GW2.
• Kodan: The massive bear folks, never before playable in the series.

What's happening to Guild Wars 2?

After announcing GW3, ArenaNet posted an entire video talking about the future of Guild Wars Reforged and GW2—basically, that there is a future for both. Guild Wars 2 is planning a period of quality-of-life updates prior to the launch of GW3 and will be pausing expansion development during that time. After the launch of GW3, it will "return to shipping annual major content updates."

Here's what's coming in those game updates to Guild Wars 2:

• A Hall of Monuments system similar to the one in the original Guild Wars for logging your account achievements so they can be reflected on your Guild Wars 3 account
• Modernizing and polishing GW2 by bringing older content "up to more current design standards"
• A new World versus World map for the first time in years
• A new explorable zone set in Orr "bridging the Tyria you know and the Tyria you're about to discover in Guild Wars 3"