What races are playable in Guild Wars 3?

ArenaNet has not confirmed a playable race list for Guild Wars 3. Because the game is set over a thousand years before the original Guild Wars, the Guild Wars 2 roster does not map directly. The sylvari, for example, did not exist until 1302 AE, long after this game is set.

Guild Wars 3 races

Short answer: Guild Wars 3 (GW3) has no confirmed playable race list. The big twist is the setting: it takes place over a thousand years before the original Guild Wars, so the familiar Guild Wars 2 races do not all line up.

Why the timeline matters

ArenaNet placed Guild Wars 3 in Orr, over a thousand years before the events of the original Guild Wars. That single fact reshapes the race question, because not every Guild Wars 2 race existed that far back.

The clearest case is the sylvari. They are the youngest playable race in Guild Wars 2, and the first of them did not sprout from the Pale Tree until 1302 AE, more than a thousand years after this game is set. A playable sylvari in Guild Wars 3 would break the established timeline.

Race and timeline background from the Guild Wars 2 wiki: Sylvari ↗ and Guild Wars 2 wiki: Playable races ↗, used under CC-BY-NC-SA.

What is confirmed

Only the role is confirmed, not a race roster. You play a Vaelwarden, a guardian of Orr who protects the people and spirits of the land. ArenaNet has not said which races a Vaelwarden can be. Fans have combed the announcement trailer for familiar faces, but the studio has confirmed nothing, so treat any race list you see right now as a community read, not a fact.

The honest take

A prequel set deep in Tyria’s past gives ArenaNet room to bring back old races in an earlier form or introduce new ones, while leaving out races that had not appeared yet. Until there is an official reveal, that is as far as the facts go. For everything confirmed so far, see what we know, and for the setting, the world of Orr page.