ArenaNet & 2weeks Detail Their Steam Deck Support Journey in Guild Wars Reforged Q&A

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Source: Forbes

When you think of MMORPGs, the thought of rapidly pressing keys all over your keyboard and macro commands might come into your mind, and you wouldn't be wrong. Therefore, it's quite uncommon for one to receive proper controller support, let alone Steam Deck support, but that's exactly what Guild Wars Reforged achieved.

Speaking to Forbes, the developers behind Guild Wars Reforged spoke about bringing the game to Steam Deck and getting the coveted Steam Deck Verified badge from Valve.

While the developers don't track specific player numbers using the Steam Deck, they did note that they "have some people here in the office who play on Steam Deck or similar handhelds a lot" and that the addition of controller support really opened up players being able to play Guild Wars while in family rooms of the house, which is a huge benefit that handheld consoles enjoy.

It wasn't without its challenges, though, and the developers had a few things to say about the obstacles they faced when adding controller and Steam Deck support to the game.

We knew that getting 100% of the controls directly mapped to a gamepad wasn’t going to be the right play, so we focused on getting the functionality required by the core gameplay loops—interactions and combat—to a really good spot for launch.

Richard Foge, Chief Creative Officer at 2weeks

As you might imagine, mapping keyboard controls one-to-one with a gamepad just isn't feasible, so instead, they targeted the most important key maps, along with using contextual controls, which adjust to what you're doing in the game at that time. Plus, they integrated a cursor that can be controlled with a gamepad for menu navigation.

They also comment that controller support will continue to receive refinements in future patches.

I think I speak for all of us when I say that we definitely appreciate all the hard work that ArenaNet and 2weeks have put into making Guild Wars Reforged one of the best MMORPGs to play on the Steam Deck, and we hope that more games follow suit in the future.

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