About this Afterlife guide
Guild Wars Afterlife Guide is an independent fan resource for ArenaNet's 2027 DLC. It is written and maintained by one person, in English, for players who want the practical answer before they spend money or plan a character. It is not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT, and it does not speak for them.
The site exists because the DLC was announced on November 3, 2026 with a launch date seven weeks into the future, and most of the questions players asked in the first day were answerable from two documents: ArenaNet's announcement and the Steam store listing. Putting those answers in one place, with dates and sources attached, is the whole project.
The three areas
Three areas, in order of how much space they get.
The DLC itself. What it is, what it costs, when it launches, what the pre-purchase includes, what the dungeon does, and how the skill-drafting mode changes the game. These pages are built from the announcement and the store pages.
The base game. Guild Wars Reforged is required to play Afterlife, and most players deciding on the DLC are really deciding about the base game. The Reforged pages cover its campaigns, professions, update history, platform support and system requirements.
The buying decision. Price comparisons, value judgements and preparation steps, written for three audiences: new players, returning players, and people who have already bought it.
| Area | Pages | Main sources |
|---|---|---|
| The DLC | Release, price, costume, dungeon, drafting, rewards, enemies, story | Steam announcement, Steam store page |
| The base game | Reforged primer, professions, update timeline, platforms, specs | Reforged store page, Steam news feed, official wiki |
| The decision | Worth it, versus Reforged, how to prepare, FAQ | All of the above |
Where the information comes from
Four sources, in this order of authority.
- ArenaNet's announcement, published on Steam news on November 3, 2026. This is the primary document for the DLC: the date, the price, the features, the setting and the pre-purchase bonus all come from it.
- The Steam store pages for Afterlife (app 5149500) and Reforged (app 29720). These carry the price display, the language list, the categories, the system requirements and the store-specific details such as how the costume is redeemed.
- The Reforged update notes, published through 2026. These are the record for what has changed in the base game since launch.
- The Guild Wars Wiki, which ArenaNet operates. It is used for base-game mechanics — the ten professions, secondary profession rules, henchmen — and never copied wholesale.
Where those sources disagree, the newer one wins: the Windows support notice of October 13, 2026 overrides the Windows 7 line in the system requirements, and the store page's redeemed-at-an-NPC instruction overrides any assumption that the costume appears automatically.
How corrections work
If a page is wrong, the email on the contact page reaches a person. Corrections are applied to the page and the checked date is updated, so you can see when a claim was last verified.
The most useful correction is a specific one: the page, the sentence, and the official source that contradicts it. Vague disagreements about tone are harder to act on than "the store page says the promotion ends on a different date".
What the site is not
It is not a wiki. There is no community editing, no item database and no attempt to cover every skill in the game — the official wiki does that better and has been doing it for twenty years.
It is not a news site. It does not chase announcements; it updates when something in the record changes.
It is not official. Guild Wars, Guild Wars Reforged, Guild Wars Afterlife, ArenaNet and NCSOFT are trademarks of their respective owners. Game imagery on this site is official promotional material, used for reference and credited as such.
Who runs it
One writer, playing Guild Wars since the Prophecies era and running a small set of game guide sites. The editorial rule is simple: a number without a source does not go on a page.
The guides index lists every page with the question it answers. The contact page has the address.
The site also keeps a short memory of the base game's patch history, because a DLC sold in January 2027 inherits a client that was patched all through 2026. Those notes are dated and quoted rather than summarised from memory.
What happens after launch
The site is written for the pre-purchase window, so the pages that describe runs are built from announcements rather than from play. When the DLC unlocks on January 13, 2027, those pages get rewritten against the live game: what a run actually contains, which draft offers appear, what the reward tracks pay out.
Pages that will not need rewriting are the base-game ones. Reforged's campaigns, professions and system requirements are stable, and the update timeline grows at the top as new patches arrive.
Imagery
Every screenshot on the site is official material from the Steam listings for Guild Wars Afterlife and Guild Wars Reforged, including frames taken from ArenaNet's own announcement trailer. Images are credited in their captions. No third-party screenshots, no fan art, no generated imagery.
Checked 2026-11-05.
Next in the dossier
- The ten professions — The full roster, and the primary/secondary rules.
- Nightmares and Ancient Golems — Two enemy families and a returning adversary.
- The Cult of Odran — The antagonist faction, and what the sources establish.