Our latest coverage of ArenaNet.
After laying-off hundreds of employees in early 2019 as a result of NCSoft’s restructuring, ArenaNet looks like it’s going through another round of layoffs. Jennifer Scheurle, a lead game designer at the studio and senior designer on an unannounced project, recently tweeted that she had been let go as part of yet another “re-shuffling” at the studio. “I just lost [...]
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Former ArenaNet Technical Art Lead, Jens Hauch, unexpectedly passed away on March 29, 2020 at the age of 46. He is survived by his wife and two kids. Hauch started working in the games industry in 1997 as a technical and environment artist for various video game development studios including Beep Industries, Cavedog Entertainment, and Cranky Pants Games. Hauch eventually [...]
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Over the past year, we’ve been reporting on high-profile developers leaving ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 left and right, including the studio’s co-founder and president, Mike O’Brien. In a refreshing change of pace, today’s news piece is all about a newly hired developer. Well, technically he’s a re-hire. Let’s all welcome back Ben Arnold, who is now the new GW2 [...]
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These past few years haven’t been good on ArenaNet. Since last year, the company has been hit with massive layoffs, company restructuring, and multiple high-profile developers leaving for better opportunities including Lead Game Designer and Lead Writer Bill Friest and Co-founder/President Mike O’Brien. Today, another developer has decided to leave ArenaNet’s ranks. Lead Systems Designer Hugh Norfolk announces his departure [...]
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Another band of former ArenaNet employees have come together to form a new studio called Tenacious Entertainment.
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ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien has just announced that he will be leaving the company to form a new studio with some of his friends. The announcement was made through a post on the Guild Wars 2 official website earlier today: “For the past two decades we’ve gotten to work with brilliant developers and advisors, we’ve enjoyed an amazing relationship with [...]
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The 2019 Industry bloodletting continues. Leaks of a massive round of layoffs at ArenaNet were leaked on February 20th and were confirmed by NCSoft which owns ArenaNet, on February 21st. The layoffs are likely due to stalling revenue across NCSoft's PC lineup, and ArenaNet's inability to finish several projects which have been under development for a number of years. The [...]
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Guild Wars 2 is a free-to-play fantasy-themed MMORPG developed by ArenaNet and is the sequel to the first Guild Wars. The game features an expansive and dynamic world that changes based on the player’s actions. [singlepic id=13307 w=428 h=240 float=none] Publisher: NCSOFT Playerbase: High Type: F2P MMORPG (paid expansions) Release Date: August 28, 2012 PvP: Arenas / Large scale World [...]
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Wizards of the Coast Narrative Designer Michael Yichao announced via Twitter yesterday that he’ll be “hanging up” his wizard robes to take up a job with ArenaNet as a Narrative Designer for the studio’s award-winning MMORPG, Guild Wars 2. Some personal news: at the end of June, I'll be hanging up my Wizards robes to start as a narrative designer [...]
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Former ArenaNet—Guild Wars 2—game director Colin Johanson has joined Amazon Game Studios. Amazon has been adding names from the industry to their roster for some time now, e.g. former EA creative director Richard Hilleman of EA and game designer Jeff Grubb (also of Guild Wars 2 fame). And Amazon tweeted just the other day that they're still looking for someone [...]
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