Guild Wars Nightfall is a fantasy action role-playing game and the third stand-alone campaign in the Guild Wars series developed by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of NCSOFT corporation. Nightfall was released worldwide on October 27, 2006, having been in development alongside Guild Wars Factions since November 2005.
Nightfall takes place in the continent of Elona in the Guild Wars universe. It follows the player's character as they join the Order of the Sunspears and uncover the desire of Warmarshal Varesh to return a long forgotten god to the world through an event called Nightfall. The players, assisted by their hero allies, fight through civil war, ignorant Vabbi princes and Varesh's demon allies as they attempt to prevent the coming of Nightfall.
Gameplay
Nightfall is a continuation of the Guild Wars franchise and so follows the same gameplay principles. Guild Wars in previous releases attempted a marriage of Player versus Environment (or "PvE") and Player versus Player (or "PvP") gameplay, starting out with PvP being the logical endgame for the Prophecies campaign, and PvP optionally interspersed throughout Factions play. Nightfall moves away from this as the storyline is more PvE focused than previous campaigns.
Professions
A player with Guild Wars Nightfall may create a character from one of the six core professions from Prophecies or one of the Nightfall-specific professions:
The Dervish, described as a "holy warrior", wields a scythe and uses many different enchantments to support themselves and damage their enemies. They have the ability to temporarily transform into the likeness, or "form", of the Five Gods. They have higher base HP than any other profession. The Paragon wields a spear and acts as a battle commander. Heavily armored, they are a support character capable of helping teammates through the use of "shouts" and chants, which affect all nearby allies.
The Assassin and Ritualist can only be created through the Guild Wars Factions campaign. If a person owns both campaigns, Assassin and Ritualists can travel to participate in Guild Wars Nightfall; but they cannot be created in Guild Wars Nightfall.
Heroes
In previous campaigns players could use NPC Henchmen with predetermined sets of skills to assist them with their questing. New henchmen available through Nightfall and Guild Wars: Eye of the North are called Heroes. Heroes are customizable in that the player can select skills, armor upgrades and weapons for them. The player also has a degree of control over the actions of the heroes: the player can set map waypoints for them, controlling the type of AI they use and directing the skills they use. Heroes are unlocked through play and can be taken into PvE areas. A new PvP arena was available specifically for players to fight each other with their Heroes but has since been removed. Heroes can be acquired by all characters (Tyrian, Canthan, Elonan) and used in battle if the player has a Nightfall or Eye of the North account. Additionally, each other campaign has a hero available to add to Nightfall (an assassin for Factions, and a necromancer for Prophecies).
PvE gameplay
As with the other Guild Wars campaigns, the maximum level for all characters is twenty. Nightfall strikes a middle ground with the other Guild Wars campaigns with the amount of time spent leveling; faster than Prophecies, where much of the game is spent achieving level 20, but slower than Factions where level 20 is very quickly achieved.
New PvE-only skills have been introduced available by gaining ranks in titles. The "Sunspear Rebirth Signet" is available by reaching a certain rank in the Sunspear Rank track, and each profession has been given a special Sunspear skill that increases in power as the player's Sunspear Rank increases. "Lightbringer's Gaze" and "Lightbringer's Signet" are available upon reaching level 2 and level 3 in the Lightbringer track, respectively (these skills also power up as the player's Lightbringer Rank increases). Also, wearing the skill title "Lightbringer" increases damage done to certain creatures in the PvE environment. Gaining higher ranks in the Sunspear and Lightbringer titles also awards players with hero skill points, which can be used to unlock new skills for themselves and their heroes to use; while buying skills with regular skill points (earned by levelling up and completing missions) can still be used to gain new skills, this method only allows you to unlock skills from the player's chosen professions; using hero skill points allows you to unlock skills from any profession.