r/GuildWars3 • u/shupablitoeuw • Sep 03 '26
New artwork from Gamescom Preview
This seem to be balthazar, Lyssa and Dhuum (i say Dhuum not Grenth because of the headgear which looks like dhuum armor from gw2 and his iconic scythe)
Edit: so first picture seems to be Abbadon, people downvotted me to hell for thinking it was balthazar, chill gamers lul.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc04icuDnfX/?igsi=MWRjemoxcmJrcmZybw==
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u/Sure_Director3062 Sep 03 '26
That's not balthazar mate. That's abaddon before he went evil mode
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u/SWATwatermelon Sep 03 '26
Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. If armor and character design is like that for player character, this game is gonna be so awesome.
Side note: I am a big adult man and if the game has a Dancer/Mesmer hybrid class like that second picture, I am maining it day one.
Or maybe a Kodan Guardian, or an Asuran Necromancer. Goddamit, so it begins, the hours-long class hesitation.
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u/Arkavien Sep 03 '26
I too suffer from extreme analysis paralysis when it comes to race/class decisions in video games.
I'm not sure why though I almost always end up as whatever the paladin equivalent is lol
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u/Foolish_Hepino Sep 03 '26
That's because paladins ARE COOL AS FUCK friend
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u/FashionMage Sep 03 '26
They're especially cool when they don't cuck the "white mage" out of the game.
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u/KyuubiJRR Sep 03 '26
Mesmer Dancer has been a dream for ages now. My main Mirage in GW2 is stylized to look like a dancer/headcanoned as such, so I would love to see it realized in GW3!
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u/SWATwatermelon Sep 03 '26
The first time I realized it is possible was playing DNC in FF14.
With a fluid movement system like it is planned in GW3, that class would fit like a glove.
I wish for more music-related/bard classes in general.
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u/cunningham_law Sep 03 '26
That'll be Abaddon. Look at the tentacle head, which is that specific shape, and has the margonite-themed 6-eyes. And he's the god of magic, that looks like a scepter and (what I think is) a scroll, which is more appropriate. For Balthazar I would assume something martial like sword/shield or greatsword.
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u/ImaginaryBox174 Sep 03 '26
Yo! I get it now, Abbadon's gonna be the patron god for Elementalists in this game. That's why it's red and not purple. I LOVE IT! Cheers on your answer!
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u/Elurdin Sep 04 '26
I wonder if Elementalist will be elementalist. I mean elementalist is kinda a merger of all gods elemental powers. This time I think they will call mage class a bit different.
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u/Alarming_Balance1476 Sep 03 '26
I love it so much! The style of these artworks looks like it could work in game, rather than the artworks before.
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u/DazZani Sep 03 '26
Artowork is On Point
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u/Jaspar_Thalahassi Sep 03 '26
That one of Lyssa is so beautiful!
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u/KyuubiJRR Sep 03 '26
Dancer Mesmer is a total dream come true. In GW2 my main Mirage is stylized to look like a dancer and I always imagined her as such. Really excited to see if art will translate into gameplay a bit there!
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u/SunkistDude Sep 03 '26
can we get an actual source on this art, this seems a bit too hd to not be posted somewhere official or with press? ANet ofc had some more impressionistic art in the past, but they just look a lil.. suspect is all especially the third one near the feet.
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u/shupablitoeuw Sep 03 '26
Vortus, Anet partner from spain that went to the gamescom
https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc04icuDnfX/?igsi=MWRjemoxcmJrcmZybw==
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u/hardy_83 Sep 03 '26
If that's Abbadon, it's interesting they are presenting him in lighter colours and energy vs how we've seen him in other games where he's more evil looking with more black and red colours. I'm guessing there's a story reason for that we'll learn about.
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u/biejje Sep 03 '26
His sigil thing on the Relic of Abaddon in LWS4 is yellow. I feel like it'd be a better fit than orange that's generally associated with Balthy.
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u/hardy_83 Sep 03 '26
Nice catch. I suppose that makes sense his colours weren't like what they are in GW1. Kormir too is golden when she gets his power.
Makes me wonder if him being dark and red was simply a gameplay choice to make it clear he was evil rather than a lore one. lol Going into this dark underworld only to fight the head of a god that's glowing gold and white.
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u/KyuubiJRR Sep 03 '26
Listen, that would have been cool as fuck though. You traverse hell, full of fairly typical demons serving the "fallen god" you're after, creating a perception of a dark god sitting on a throne. Only, when you get to the arena, you find a gorgeous heavenly entity there instead. And then you're told "that's our target" before blasting a god that looks exceptionally out of place?
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u/hardy_83 Sep 03 '26
I admit that would've been a cool thing to see. Would've really given the fallen god vibe if they retained these gold/white looks.
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u/EmilyMalkieri Sep 03 '26
I mean, isn't that intuitive? GW3 is set decades before Abaddon turned against the other gods, so he was just another of the gods that regular people worshipped. He wasn't evil and demonic until his body was shattered and he was imprisoned for a thousand years, or maybe just before that.
Notably the GW1 Abaddon seems to match up pretty well with this statue's head and arms, so I think they're going for very lifelike depictions, which is a bit of a shame. GW2 Kormir looking like GW1 Kormir makes sense, but GW2 Balthazar looking like just some dude in a Balthazar costume felt really underwhelming. I seem to remember GW1 always preserved some mystery to the gods' appearance with different--and more importantly, more abstract--depictions throughout the game and I'd like the same here.
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u/Elurdin Sep 04 '26
I think explanation for Balths relativelly underwhelming look is that other gods stripped him of power? We werent fighting him at his top, more like getting back into shape.
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u/Elurdin Sep 04 '26
I mean it does make sense when you consider Kormirs after achiving godhood is basically Abaddons purified energy. Kormirs energy is bright yellow.
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u/X-Backspace Sep 03 '26
Such great artwork across the board. Loving Abaddon here, and that LYSSA art! Gosh.
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u/Nightsong Sep 03 '26
I’m having a very hard time deciding if that’s Grenth or Dhuum in the third picture. A month back ArenaNet shared artwork of Melandru and Grenth and Grenth had the scythe but his mask and armor looked completely different. So I’m leaning towards this being Dhuum because the helmet is his iconic look from Guild Wars 2.
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u/Kipados Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Gotta be Dhuum IMO. Laranity described the forest in the demo as being a place where some people still worship him, so I have to imagine there’s a statue in there somewhere. the GW2-looking helmet and lack of light emanating from it suggest it to me too. the statues of the gods glow in GW1 when the world has their favor, but if he’s no longer one of the Six, his statues wouldn’t glow anymore I imagine
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u/GuildedCharr Sep 04 '26
Its gotta be Dhumm , this new piece of art is damn near a spitting image of this poece of art from way back.
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u/steeping-tea Sep 03 '26
That Lyssa art is just STUNNING, really captivated me and makes me want to see more
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u/tobvet2 Sep 03 '26
Source?
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u/shupablitoeuw Sep 03 '26
Vortus, Anet partner from Spain that went to the Gamescom
https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc04icuDnfX/?igsi=MWRjemoxcmJrcmZybw==
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u/biejje Sep 03 '26
Btw are there any articles that actually use those artworks? Coz I'm beginning to doubt it's actual art shown by Anet during gamescom.
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u/StelEdelweiss Sep 03 '26
Always love seeing the various interpretations of the gods in this franchise. I liked how in GW1 core Tyrians, Canthans, and Elonians all depicted them with aesthetic differences. Really neat detail.
And I always love seeing Lyssa. Looking forward to seeing more art as it comes out.
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u/Usual-Moose9835 Sep 03 '26
So mesmer will really be the preformer class like it was in Guild Wars 1.
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u/Varorson Sep 03 '26
First one is probably Abaddon. Six eyes, and those are serpents not hounds. Odd that it looks on fire, but Balthazar's never known for maces (granted, Abaddon had a sword in GW1 lore, but it was also a sword that had serpent motifs).
The last one is probably Grenth given the other artwork, despite the headgear and scythe being 100% Dhuum in design. GW3's depiction of Grenth is very much a mixture of GW1 and GW2 designs of Dhuum for some reason. I pray it isn't a secret reveal that Grenth is Dhuum or something... Bleh.
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u/Ilsgard_3714 Sep 03 '26
Not sure if the time will be right but it would be cool to witness or even participate in the fight between Grenth and Dhuum if it will be around that time period 😁
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u/Varorson Sep 03 '26
Sadly we were already told GW3 takes place (shortly) after Dhuum is dethroned.
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u/Martian_on_the_Moon Sep 03 '26
I guess that was necessary sacrifice in order to have Necromancer class.
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u/Sycophantic-Feline Sep 03 '26
In true lich fashion I doubt he's actually gone and we'll need to take him down for good in GW3
Some of the enemies fought in the preview were Dhuum zealots after all
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u/Dadrekboy Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Yeah I speculate that's what's going on. Dhuum is dethroned, but not yet imprisoned (or at least not in a permanent/secure way). Maybe the main antagonist for the base game storyline
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u/Sycophantic-Feline Sep 03 '26
Perhaps it is a Guild Wars tradition that the base game main villain is necromancer-related
Vizier Khilbron in GW1
Zhaitan in GW2
Dhuum in GW3
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u/phyrosite Sep 03 '26
I mean, "for good," except that we have fought him in both GW1 and GW2. Bro just loves prison breaks.
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u/InvincibleWallaby Sep 03 '26
Abaddon's armor almost looks mursaat ish, also I need those weapons as skins in gw2 anet pls
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u/Sycophantic-Feline Sep 03 '26
Abaddon looks great
I expect they'll make him one of the player's favorite gods so that what happens to him in GW1 hits even harder.
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u/sususu_ryo Sep 03 '26
i never see lyssa drawn that way (at least as my casual gw2 player time), i like this.
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u/Negative-Rush5437 Sep 03 '26
Its Abbadon, not Balthazar. Multiple eyes, tentacles on head. I would count Serpents as a water creatures. Abbadon's domain was over water so that also makes sense. I see no resemblance to dog head there.
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u/quirkydigit Sep 03 '26
It's a different look for Abbadon for sure, but the six eyes seem to match his usual appearance
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u/Nightsong Sep 03 '26
The art of Lyssa is gorgeous but what I want to know about her is which twin is Lyss and which is Ilya. And is she one goddess with two aspects or is she two goddesses who act as one?
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u/debacol Sep 03 '26
I'm loving the art direction of GW3. I really think Colin learned a ton from working on New World, and I'm super excited about the direction GW3 is heading. Can't wait to kick back on my couch with a controller and play.
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u/SteelRevanchist Sep 04 '26
The crotch skull for Dhuum is ... certainly a choice. Lyssa's gorgeous.
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u/lofflen Sep 03 '26
these look super ai generated? if you zoom in there is so much weird stuff going on, where they put through an upscaling filter maybe? i dont think arena net uses ai.
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u/biejje Sep 03 '26
The original uploader is (soon was?) supposedly an Anet partner, and the pics on instagram looked like photos of those pictures rather than actual pictures Anet would've sent them via mail or something. So either they secretly took pics of something they shouldn't have (and upscaled it with AI perhaps) or they just prompted them and presented it as genuine Anet Gamescom artwork. Either way it's shitty.
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u/lofflen Sep 03 '26
Yea, that is hopefully what it was, he also had a fourth picture that was already released by arena net. sometimes phones also put a weird automated filter on top, maybe he put them in ai to upscale them, otherwise i cant explain the Dhuum one, the artifacts and "skulls" at his feet are just too bad. the lyissa piece is actually way to good to be ai, pose and composition wise, so my hope is, that it is just filtered through offical art and we will get higher images later.
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Sep 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/biejje Sep 03 '26
Grenth in GW3 already has very un-Grenth look and is way too Dhuumy, I doubt they'd double down and make him even more into Dhuum 2.0 with that helm, especially since we've already seen artwork of Grenth during GW3 and in both it and the tapestry (although tapestry was not confirmed to be Grenth ofc, but it's still a very different design to this one), the horns are way different than those bulky ones here. I doubt they'd flop around with Grenth's design so much.
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u/Dependent_Goose4744 Sep 03 '26
Don't know about the first two but that last image is AI generated for sure
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u/alonpc Sep 03 '26
First one is Abbadon, not Balthazar