I think we need to clear up some misconceptions about Unreal Engine 5 and how it effects Guild Wars 3
[Sorry it should have been "affects" in the title]
I have been seeing a lot of misinformed comments about the game's engine this weekend and I think a few things need to be said. Here are a few current, potential, and potential future misconceptions:
1. The game's art/visual style is like it is because of UE5. This is 99% false. The engine doesn't dictate what the textures, shaders, and models look like in their design. In fact, you could import some models and textures from GW2 into UE5 and tweak the lighting and it would look pretty much exactly like GW2. UE5 is capable of handling any art style you throw at it, and the same can be said for any modern engine. There will likely be some commonalities shared with other UE5 games with things like how the anti-aliasing looks, but even then, you can tweak those.
2. The game will run better/worse because it is on UE5. This is about 60% false. You have likely played some UE5 games that ran pretty terribly, and there are quite a few. And it's true that the engine offers a lot of quick and dirty tools to generate things like trees, rocks and cliffs, and in modern game design it is no longer necessary to optimize a lot of things that needed it in previous generations. In some cases, this adds a default bonus to a game's performance, but it can also encourage overabundance and laziness. Just like with any engine, you can make your game run at super high framerates if you don't push it too hard, or you can do the opposite. A lot of UE5 games are pushed too hard or built inefficiently, so that won't necessarily be the case with GW3. However, GW2 was definitely pushed too hard, so...
3. In-house engines are always better because they let the devs design the engine exactly for what they need. This is about 80% false. While it is definitely true that is the reason devs would opt to create their own engine, that doesn't mean that an industry engine like UE5 doesn't have almost everything they need. And just as people have gotten Doom to run on a refrigerator, or inside Minecraft, or some medical device, you never really can say "never" when it comes to computer science. It's always possible in some way and somehow to add a missing engine level feature to an engine. Also ArenaNet is a known business, they very likely have a decently open channel with Epic Games. There may even be some UE5 features and fixes added for all future UE5 titles that are thanks to GW3.
4. A and B game have X and Y feature or visual effect, so GW3 could do it too. Just because another UE5 game has something, that doesn't mean it was built-in to UE5. Flip that around and if there is another UE5 game that says they can't do something, that doesn't mean GW3 can't do it.
5. GW3 has to be blurry and have forced ray tracing because its on UE5. It is possible the disable ray tracing in an Unreal Engine 5 project so it's not completely forced. It is also possible to have that be a setting either ingame or as a launch option. However, if the game is designed exclusively on ray tracing, then there may be areas where the lighting doesn't look right when it's turned off. ArenaNet has always been committed to compatibility with lower end machines, so I'm not too worried here. Now when it comes to blurriness, ray tracing is often accompanied by upscaling technology like DLSS. The reason is that on its own, ray tracing often tanks your performance to uncomfortable levels, games then gain some of that performance back by lowering the resolution. DLSS then fakes a higher resolution again, but the tradeoff is a bit of a blurry look, especially when there is motion. There is still a risk that GW3 might be affected by this, but those upscalers are getting better and better and there's always a chance that a third party dll can help clean it up a bit if you're on PC. However, the specifics of raytracing and upscaling vary game by game.
6. [FUTURE] This game just updated to UE6! Guild Wars 3 should be able to do it too! That depends. MMOs like GW3 tend to be much much much larger and more complex than other types of games. There are a lot more points where things can be a headache to fix when you do an engine update. So don't be surprised if GW3 gets locked to UE5 or even a specific version of UE5. However, Epic Games is always looking for ways to improve Unreal Engine and its usage so you never know exactly what can and can't be done in the future of game development.