Guild Wars Nightfall is a fantasy action role-playing game and the third stand-alone campaign in the Guild Wars series developed by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCSOFT corporation. Nightfall was released worldwide on October 27, 2006, having been in development alongside Guild Wars Factions since November 2005.
Nightfall takes place in the continent of Elona in the Guild Wars universe. It follows the player character as they join the Order of the Sunspears and uncover the desire of Warmarshal Varesh to return a long forgotten god to the world through an event called Nightfall. The players, assisted by their hero allies, fight through civil war, ignorant Vabbi princes and Varesh's demon allies as they attempt to prevent the coming of Nightfall.
A rerelease of the original game titled Guild Wars Reforged, which includes all content from Guild Wars Factions and Guild Wars Nightfall was released on December 3, 2025. The game will be released on mobile platforms on June 24th, 2026.
Gameplay Nightfall is a continuation of the Guild Wars franchise and so follows the same gameplay principles. Guild Wars in previous releases attempted a marriage of Player versus Environment (or "PvE") and Player versus Player (or "PvP") gameplay, starting out with PvP being the logical endgame for the Prophecies campaign, and PvP optionally interspersed throughout Factions play. Nightfall moves away from this as the storyline is more PvE focused than previous campaigns.
Professions A player with Guild Wars Nightfall may create a character from one of the six core professions from Prophecies or one of the Nightfall-specific professions:
The Dervish, described as a "holy warrior", wields a scythe and uses many different enchantments to support themselves and damage their enemies. They have the ability to temporarily transform into the likeness, or "form", of the Five Gods. They have higher base HP than any other profession. The Paragon wields a spear and acts as a battle commander. Heavily armored, they are a support character capable of helping teammates through the use of "shouts" and chants, which affect all nearby allies.
The Assassin and Ritualist can only be created through the Guild Wars Factions campaign. If a person owns both campaigns, Assassin and Ritualists can travel to participate in Guild Wars Nightfall; but they cannot be created in Guild Wars Nightfall.
Heroes In previous campaigns players could use NPC Henchmen with predetermined sets of skills to assist them with their questing. New henchmen available through Nightfall and Guild Wars: Eye of the North are called Heroes. Heroes are customizable in that the player can select skills, armor upgrades and weapons for them. The player also has a degree of control over the actions of the heroes: the player can set map waypoints for them, controlling the type of AI they use and directing the skills they use. Heroes are unlocked through play and can be taken into PvE areas. A new PvP arena was available specifically for players to fight each other with their Heroes but has since been removed. Heroes can be acquired by all characters (Tyrian, Canthan, Elonan) and used in battle if the player has a Nightfall or Eye of the North account. Additionally, each other campaign has a hero available to add to Nightfall (an assassin for Factions, and a necromancer for Prophecies).
PvE gameplay As with the other Guild Wars campaigns, the maximum level for all characters is twenty. Nightfall strikes a middle ground with the other Guild Wars campaigns with the amount of time spent leveling; faster than Prophecies, where much of the game is spent achieving level 20, but slower than Factions where level 20 is very quickly achieved.
New PvE-only skills have been introduced available by gaining ranks in titles. The "Sunspear Rebirth Signet" is available by reaching a certain rank in the Sunspear Rank track, and each profession has been given a special Sunspear skill that increases in power as the player's Sunspear Rank increases. "Lightbringer's Gaze" and "Lightbringer's Signet" are available upon reaching level 2 and level 3 in the Lightbringer track, respectively (these skills also power up as the player's Lightbringer Rank increases). Also, wearing the skill title "Lightbringer" increases damage done to certain creatures in the PvE environment. Gaining higher ranks in the Sunspear and Lightbringer titles also awards players with hero skill points, which can be used to unlock new skills for themselves and their heroes to use; while buying skills with regular skill points (earned by levelling up and completing missions) can still be used to gain new skills, this method only allows you to unlock skills from the player's chosen professions; using hero skill points allows you to unlock skills from any profession.
Further benefits of title tracks have also been integrated into the game since; for example, the player's ranks in the Lucky/Unlucky (gained by playing various in-game gambling activities) and Treasure Hunter (gained by attaining "rare" items from chests) title tracks aid the player's chances of lockpicks not breaking when opening chests and reducing the chances of an item being destroyed when salvaging upgrade components (such as runes, which increase attributes).
PvE has been expanded when compared to the previous chapters; some parts of the game draw parallels to single player RPGs such as Knights of the Old Republic or Baldur's Gate. For example, the player has to undertake a certain Nightfall mission alone, without the use of Heroes, henchmen, or other players. The mission requires very little combat and actually consists of a series of mini-games. Another example is a mini-mission that involves the player acting as a lawyer in a court case, where choosing the right line of argument will alter the outcome of the trial. The ability for the player to choose a course of action brings the game closer to its offline counterparts as opposed to the linear mission structure in other Action RPGs, as well as Guild Wars Prophecies and Factions.
The addition of Heroes has also made the game similar to single player RPGs, as most Heroes have their own side quests the player can complete if they choose. Depending on which Hero you bring on quests, they make different comments on the current situation, whether remarking about ease of enemies during battle or random comments while standing around. Heroes also allow more freedom when playing as a single player with only computer controlled party members since they can be given more commands than ordinary henchmen and their skills can be tailored to specific situations. The addition of commands and customization makes many challenges that would have required other human players without Heroes possible. The hero system has also led to many Guild Wars players highly recommending Nightfall as a good starter campaign for newcomers to the game, as it encourages more strategic thinking and also makes playing PvE more straightforward (as especially in the earlier stages of the game, heroes may be of a higher level than henchmen and offer a better degree of survivability). This advice is not always sound since Heroes need to be equipped (which can be very costly) and their skills need to be unlocked (except for their starter skills).
Mission structure has also changed somewhat. Like in Factions, bonus rewards are dependent on the performance during the mission, not just one side quest; however, the bonus could depend on something like killing certain creatures or preventing others from dying. For all but the last two missions, a certain hero must be in the party before the mission can begin. There are three pairs of missions where either one or the other must be completed before the plot progresses. Two of these pairs are selected depending on which hero was added to the party early on, while the third mission split offers a choice to the player. All the missions can be completed at the appropriate place in the plot, either depending on other players or by waiting until the plot has been completed (at which point players may gain all the heroes that they had previously chosen not to take).
PvP gameplay Prior to the release of Nightfall, ArenaNet announced the PvP Editions of the campaigns they have released. This made Nightfall the first campaign where players could have access to the skills and PvP parts of the campaign without having to play or pay for the PvE parts of the game. A player interested in PvP gains access to the core PvP content, 300 new skills for the Nightfall campaign, new guild halls and a new type of Arena.
Nightfall introduced an all new type of PvP Arena called Hero Battles. In this Arena, a player chooses three of their heroes to join them in combat against another player and three of their heroes. Each player chose the skills each of their heroes use, and micromanage how they used those skills in the Arena. Players also used way point flags and micromanaged hero targeting to order heroes to capture/defend specific points or attack specific targets. These hero battles created a new international tournament for solo players; previously, the only formal tournament was in the form of Guild vs Guild matches, which requires teams of eight players. However, Hero Battles were removed from the game following controversy regarding a quest in which the player had to win Hero Battles to gain a reward; players were assigned either Red or Blue in the battle, and when this game became a part of a quest the "Red Resign rule" was implemented. This rule had the Red player resign from the battle, giving the Blue player an automatic win in order for the reward to be easily gained. ArenaNet observed this occurring and, after warning players they would be banned for fixing match results, removed the Arena from play.
Plot The player character is recruited as a junior officer in Elona's independent guardian force, the Order of the Sunspears - they are led by their Spearmarshal, Kormir. The player quickly earns respect and rank in the Sunspears dealing with unusual occurrences around Istan, where the headquarters of the Sunspears is located.
The strange deaths of a dig team excavating a long abandoned city, information about an event called Nightfall and its ties to the return of a forgotten fallen god, Abaddon, start to cause concern for the Sunspears. Evidence builds that a delegation from the nation of Kourna, which is conveniently visiting the Sunspears, are behind these unusual happenings. When the Kournan General, Kahyet, attempts to strike a deal with the corsairs harassing Istan, the Sunspears intervene. Kahyet is killed, plunging cautious relations with Kourna into strife. During a hearing with the elder council, Kormir - who had temporarily left in order to seek allies in Cantha and Tyria - returns, citing that similar occurrences have happened elsewhere.
Realizing the danger in the activities of Warmarshal Varesh Ossa (the current Kournan leader), Kormir convinces the Istan council to cease diplomatic talks and instead start civil war to prevent Varesh from bringing about Nightfall. Rallying the troops the Sunspears sail from Istan to Gandara, the largest fortress in Kourna and Varesh's seat of power, to confront Varesh and bring her to justice. Upon breaking through their heavy defenses, Varesh plays her trump card, summoning the demons of Abaddon which rout the Sunspear troops. Kormir is left for dead as the remaining Sunspears flee through Kourna province.