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Guild Wars Nightfall

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9.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 30 critic reviews
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Based on 41 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: NCSoft

Developer: ArenaNet

Genre(s): Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Players: Thousands

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: October 27, 2006

Summary

Guild Wars Nightfall continues the tradition of inviting players to immerse themselves in an epic storyline centered in a vibrant fantasy setting, build personalized characters, compete in head-to-head battles with players from around the world, and find adventure in missions and quests, in a Guild Wars game unlike any players have seen before. Two new professions are introduced in the game; the Dervish, a scythe-wielding holy warrior, and the Paragon, guardian angel of the Elonian people. [NCSoft]

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: Guild Wars Guild Wars 2 Guild Wars Factions Guild Wars: Eye of the North

Cheat Codes & Hints: GameSpot Hints & Cheats

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Play.tm

For veterans of the series, you will gladly find your love for it refreshed and charged, once again to play through this new glorious setting and deeper plotline, incorporating two new character classes and hero customisation to keep you online and campaigning for hours on end.

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Game Chronicles

If you’re a Guild Wars fan, you really should pick up the best expansion of the series so far. New players who are interested in Guild Wars should also start with Nightfall, considering all the improvements ArenaNet has made.

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Pelit (Finland)

Adds a PvE campaign that is better than in many single-player RPG's. The new hero system is excellent and brings a new aspect to PvE play. As a result, Guild Wars now appeals also to those who are not so interested in PvP. [Jan 2007]

GamerNode

Whether looked at as a standalone game or an update to previous Guild Wars titles, Nightfall is a winner. While it isn't particularly innovative and won't win any awards for major technical upgrades, it is a very nice addition to the series, and most importantly, it's simply fun to play.

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PC Gamer

Nightfall is easily the best of three Guild Wars products and has set a very high bar for the next chapter. [Jan. 2007, p.76]

Yahoo! Games

If you're already a Guild Wars player, Nightfall is worth it for the story, continent, professions, and heroes. If you're new, Nightfall is the best installment so far, and a great place to start with this deservedly ultra successful MMO.

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1UP

Story aside, the campaign shines. The pacing's on par with Factions in terms of how quickly you gain levels (not that those matter much in Guild Wars anyway), and the game's 20 missions present lots of replay incentive thanks to a tiered reward system.

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Boomtown

It serves as the perfect introduction to the franchise or indeed MMORPG games in general, as the quest system is exceptionally easy to follow, while the presentation and visuals are top notch.

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Games Radar (in-house)

Guild Wars fans should not hesitate in picking up this title for the new professions and heroes alone. And with no monthly fees, Guild Wars Nightfall serves as an excellent introduction to those unfamiliar with the MMORPG genre or Guild Wars series.

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PC Gamer UK

Something of a triumph...Simply the best Guild wars yet. [Christmas 2006, p.76]

PC Zone UK

Absolutely gorgeous to look at. [Jan 2007, p.66]

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AtomicGamer

In the end, though, Nightfall is the best chapter so far in the Guild Wars package and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who skipped out on Factions or quit shortly after its release.

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Computer Games Online RO

Content wise, Guild Wars Nightfall is an excellent purchase for the Guild Wars community, but also for those who want to see why Guild Wars is so popular with MMORPG players who prefer competitive PvP gameplay above all else.

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GameZone

The game looks good, and still plays well. The game does not substantially send the franchise forward with innovations, but rather adds to what is already there.

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2404.org

Any fan of the series, already dedicated to playing the game at least a few hours a week, will find this well worth the investment.

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GamingTrend

After seeing what they have done with this setting, I can't wait to see what the next campaign will contain.

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IC-Games

Not much has changed for the third Guild Wars release but that’s not necessarily a bad thing either – especially when you look into some of the less talked about refinements.

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IGN

If you've never experienced Guild Wars, Nightfall is the place to start. It offers plenty of augmented features to make playing solo more viable, while simultaneously facilitating cooperative play.

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GameSpot

Unmistakably similar to the previous two games in the innovative Guild Wars series, Nightfall features an impressive new Egyptian-themed continent to explore through plenty of solo and cooperative questing.

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GameSpy

The implementation of the Heroes may not be perfect, and their applications in PvP something of an afterthought, but their presence still adds a considerable amount of breadth to this already rich, rewarding game.

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Jolt Online Gaming UK

Some elements of the game could definitely use a bit more polish, and we’d hope to see some more significant retroactive technical changes for the next inevitable outing, but for now Guild Wars Nightfall represents a perfectly justifiable if not essential purchase.

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Strategy Informer

A great chapter and one that can easily be picked up and played through for beginners like myself without becoming bewildered by past game lore.

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PC Format

The amount of content, features and the fact it's still free of subscriptions makes Guild Wars Nightfall a great MMORPG title. [Jan 2007, p.69]

games(TM)

In fact, it will suit many tastes better than Blizzard's epic WOW - and crucially, magically, incredibly, it is still free of subscription fees... Honour this innovative and pioneering franchise with your hard-earned money, and you will not regret it. [Christmas 2006, p.100]

GameShark

A worthwhile download for any role-playing fan and an absolute must have for Guild Wars fans.

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My Gamer

Where it falls down is in originality: for all its polish, in the end it's really just more of the same as I've played countless hours before.

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PC Gameworld

Nightfall doesn’t really bring anything new game mechanic wise to the Guild Wars franchise, but it does offer some beautiful environments and cultural inventiveness to an otherwise bland fantasy genre.

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AceGamez

There's a lot of enjoyment and variety to be found here, and Nightfall certainly adds enough for fans of Guild Wars to make the purchase, while the fact that there's no monthly fee is enough of a plus point to recommend this to MMORPG fans who haven't tried Guild Wars before.

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Eurogamer

as adventures go Nightfall feels much more open than previous Guild Wars modules. While many of the quests had been tied to tightly linear the maps, the missions of Nightfall are far more open-ended.

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GameDaily

The new Dervish and Paragon professions add a lot of flavor to both role playing and PvP. Yet, the game's story takes a long while to pick up, and some design issues from previous games still exist.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Finally, a game where skill means more than anything, and where players are free to gain this skill at their own pace. The world is beautiful, stories comical and well written and the PvP intense and fun.

anti citizen gave it a2:
Imagine a 3D chat enviroment like Moove. Then imagine Dungeon Siege. Blend both, and you have Guild Wars - Nightfall. Sounds like a good idea? Read on. I can't begin to express my disapointment in this game. The flatter this game got is seriously exaggerated or the people playing it aren't really that demanding over their hard earned cash. The graphics are seriously poor, they are either not-cohesive with the background and they are also awkwardly animated. The user interface is at best cluttered and confusing. Even though it is highly custom friendly it looks like something from the Dungeon Siege 2 programmer's scratch board, where, by the way, this game goes alot for looks inspiration; the looting system and AI henchmen/hero wink the eye at it. On that, the henchmen and hero's sound like a great idea at first but, again, it works against it. It makes pve too easy. Most times you will just run amock and mayheming stuff while your artificial buddies heal and join you in the over easy slaughter. Not a real challange. The sound is decent, the theme music is catchy and appropriate, the voices feel forced and over acted. The intros feel unfinished. The whole thing looks forcefully glued together. The plot is irrelevant, you don't really feel compeled to know what's happening, you just move on and kill things, you don't really get a sense of depth. Instant travelling, althought like a great idea, doesn't help any. They obviously want you to get to full level asap so you can join the game's greatest strengtht. PVP. And well, if you like pvp there are probably a ton of other games that cover that. No wonder they arent giving out free trials. If I was a publisher that had a monthly free game that played like this, I would too try to hide it from customers before they could at least purchase the trial keys. The upside: No fee's, highly customable, instant full lvl for pvp bliss. There's less grinding compared to other online RPG's... except I don't think most people play that long to care. The downside: Gameplay is clumsy as well as clumsy and unfinished looks with a confusing UI, no real sense of immersion, looks and plays like an average shareware budget game with a full retail price. Conclusion: If you are still curious and tempted to get the game (like I was) don't let the "free monthly fee" be the only reason since that is only a major selling point if you DO endup playing the game often. There are other choices with no monthly fee's that are much more enjoyable than this game. Even an old school title like DS2, which undoubtly served as an inspiration for this game, would prove more fun.

Rich S. gave it a1:
The PvE is awful. It's slow and very uninteresting. Lots of boring collect 'X' amount of this and bring it back or kill 5 groups of 'X' and come back for a reward. NO QUESTION, It's very crappy compared to Prophecies. I bought it thinking it would be half-way decent but I was wrong. PvP is the same as ever, always fun, but the PvE kills it when you have to buy skills rather than learn them by quest like in Prophecies. It blows Factions out of the water and it still gets a 1, that just shows you how bad Factions was/is. If you're into the game mainly for PvE (like I was) then don't waste your time, but if you're into it for PvP and unlocking things through PvP then the game isn't half bad.

[Anonymous] gave it a6:
No where near as good as the previous games. I could only play the campaign through once with getting bored and leaving the rest of my characters half way through. Its basically do this mission, run here, do this mission, run there.

Ross A. gave it a9:
This game provides the whole spectrum of game players (casual, hardcore, competitive) something to enjoy. That being said, this game is fairly difficult without having played the other campaigns and gathered some experience/skills (though it does a better job of being a stand-alone than Factions). Overall, a game with far more pros than cons. Pick this one up if you are interested in a very diverse RPG focused on strategy as opposed to mindless grinding.

Philip L. gave it a10:
I hoped this was better than Factions and an equivalent of the Profecies... But I was wrong, this stand alone-expansion is indeed better than Factions and even better than the original! Nice as a stand alone, but I think when you have the 3 sets now, you'll be more happy.

Ying T. gave it a10:
Excellent Game, no monthly fees, good graphics, the fairest for the new comers and veterans.

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Guild Wars Nightfall

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Summary

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What The Critics Said

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