Guild Wars Afterlife, the first new DLC for the original Guild Wars in almost 20 years, launches on January 13, 2027 for PC, Steam, the Apple App Store and Google Play. ArenaNet announced it on November 3. Prepurchase costs $23.99/€23.99 and includes a bonus costume, the Vestments of the Order. At launch the price goes back up to $29.99/€29.99.
Afterlife is not a classic campaign. It’s a run-based dungeon in which your existing characters draft new skills from every profession, and the dungeon changes each time you go in. It also requires Guild Wars Reforged, the updated client of the 21-year-old game.
Table of Contents
Guild Wars Afterlife release date, price and platforms
| Detail | What ArenaNet says |
|---|---|
| Release date | January 13, 2027 |
| Platforms | PC (Guild Wars store), Steam, Apple App Store, Google Play |
| Prepurchase price | $23.99 / €23.99 (ArenaNet says the actual price may vary by platform and region) |
| Price at launch | $29.99 / €29.99 |
| Prepurchase bonus | Ancestral-themed Vestments of the Order costume, available right away |
| Requirement | Guild Wars Reforged ($19.99 on Steam) |
The Steam store page listed the DLC at $23.99 (20% off $29.99) when checked on November 5 at 10:00 UTC. It still shows the release date as “Coming soon.” A new Steam player who buys both pieces pays $43.98 before launch.
Xotecha's floating ruins, one of the dungeon settings ArenaNet lists. Image: ArenaNet
What’s in Guild Wars Afterlife
The story takes you to Xotecha, an isle deep within the Mists. There you join the Order of the Moonless Night, which guides lost spirits through the Unformed. ArenaNet describes the Unformed as “a jungle of shared dreams where memory is made manifest.” Spirits that linger in their pain turn into Nightmares. Now throngs of lost souls have flooded the Unformed, a cult is meddling in the afterlife, and one of the Order’s elders is missing.
ArenaNet lists these key features:
- Skill-drafting combat: you build a new skill bar each run and can pick abilities from any profession, not just your primary and secondary.
- A dynamic dungeon: jungles, cenotes and floating ruins, with a different lineup of maps, encounters and bosses on every trip.
- A new story: it unfolds a little more with each run into the Unformed.
- Two kinds of rewards: some make future runs stronger, and some are permanent rewards you can use outside Xotecha.
- New foes: Nightmares, Ancient Golems and the Cult of Odran.
- Co-op: runs with friends or with henchmen.
The Unformed mixes jungles and cenotes, and its layout changes every run. Image: ArenaNet
Do you keep your character’s gear in Afterlife?
You bring your existing characters, but each run starts from scratch. The Steam page says your character progression and inventory “evaporate in the Unformed Mists,” and every run begins from a starting loadout you pick. That’s the core change for veterans. In the main campaigns, your skill bar draws on the skills each character has collected. In Afterlife, you draft skills during the run itself. ArenaNet says the DLC is meant to challenge both long-time players and newcomers to Reforged.
Why this is a big deal for Guild Wars 1
Guild Wars Reforged came to Steam on December 3, 2025. ArenaNet credits its partnership with 2weeks for the relaunch, which brought regular content updates, a new dungeon and a mobile launch, the first for ArenaNet. Reforged includes the Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall campaigns. Eye of the North ($9.99) and the Bonus Mission Pack ($5.99) are still separate purchases on Steam. ArenaNet’s announcement names only Reforged as the requirement for Afterlife.
A paid DLC for a 21-year-old MMO is unusual. It lands in a busy week for long-running online games: Blizzard’s WoW Forever went live this week, and our WoW Forever server status page tracks how that launch is holding up.
You can run the dungeon with friends or with henchmen. Image: ArenaNet
Here is the official announcement trailer from the Guild Wars YouTube channel:
Check your Windows version before January
ArenaNet will end support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 for Guild Wars Reforged and Guild Wars 2 on November 18, 2026. It warns that the games will likely not launch or work fully on those systems after that date, and it recommends upgrading to Windows 10 or 11. On Steam, Afterlife lists Windows only.
What’s next
Prepurchase is open now. The $23.99 price applies until launch on January 13, 2027, when Afterlife returns to $29.99. We’ll add launch-day details, such as unlock times, once ArenaNet shares them. For other big releases this month, see our November 2026 release calendar.
Sources: ArenaNet announcement (November 3, 2026), Guild Wars Reforged Steam news, Guild Wars Afterlife on Steam, ArenaNet Windows support notice.
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Featured image: ArenaNet
