Even as Guild Wars 3 awaits on the distant horizon, ArenaNet revealed the theme song that will come with the upcoming massively multiplayer online game.

ArenaNet brought in famed composer Kazuma Jinnouchi to lead the development of the music, seeking to create a powerful sound design that will set the tone for the release over a year before it arrives.

One thing that the community immediately noted is that the new theme lacks what could be called the Tyrian leitmotif, a six- to seven-note internal theme that appears throughout some of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2’s most powerful and viral pieces.

The lack of the leitmotif feels like it injures respect for legacy because it lacks the nostalgia upon which the legacy is built. This lack of identity leaves it free-floating, abandoned by its peers, and some of the community expressed concern about that. The GW3 theme does not feel like it belongs to the Guild Wars family.

As part of the composition process, ArenaNet brought on Asuka Ito, Nobuko Toda, and Maclaine Diemer as contributing composers. Diemer is best known for composing the GW2 main theme and much of the music that plays in the core game. The presence of the leitmotif, the central foundation of the Tyrian-feeling sequence of notes, continues to echo in other GW2 songs such as the virally popular “Fear Not This Night.”

Although much of the community praised the song for its beauty, the lack of this connective identity led many to come away feeling it promotes a generic fantasy score with a Guild Wars patina – not a descendant of the originals.

The theme also lacks a strong internal stake that the players have yet to connect with. It could yet become a score that will resound with the community. At around one minute in, the solo violin overtakes the generic melody and plays out a sequence of six to seven notes that could themselves become a new leitmotif or sub-theme.

Helvetica, the Sanguine Vox

“When players approach a game series that has built a theme, they tend to latch onto aspects that they can carry and communicate with one another. For some games this is a strong musical score that can be hummed or recollected. The entire Zelda series does this with a core motif that becomes instantly recognized as a powerful emotional touchstone. Abandoning this to build anew can make a new main score seem listless or restless to a community expecting an anchor and being set adrift instead.” — Helvetica Sans

This sense that GW3 is generic and lacks an emotional resonance continues to plague the upcoming release. Problematically, the in-game footage revealed what looked and felt like nonspecific fantasy-themed game visuals that included what appeared to be Guild Wars races.

To some, this concern arises because it appears to be built in Unreal Engine 5 and has those slightly-too-realistic, smoothed-over graphics. Whereas GW2 became a visually distinct game because of the watercolor rendering of its beautiful world, an understated effect that dominates the entire game and separates it from both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14, the two super-dominant MMOs on the market.

Image: ArenaNet