Guild Wars 2 Adds Raid Matchmaking: Strike Missions and Raids Merged in 2026

ArenaNet has announced a major update coming to Guild Wars 2 in 2026: the ability to queue for raids through matchmaking. This change will merge all Strike Missions and Raid Wings into a single game mode, making high-end content easier to understand and access for new players.

This feature has been a long time coming, and many in the community feel it should have been implemented years ago. In the last major update, Guild Wars 2 introduced a quickplay queue system for Fractals (the game’s five-player endgame dungeons), and players widely embraced it. In 2026, ArenaNet plans to expand that concept to more challenging content.

“Strike Missions were originally designed to help players transition from open-world content into raid content.” Says Bryan Yarrow, Combat Systems Lead on Guild Wars 2, on their blog post. “They were intended to be quicker to complete than a full raid wing and have slightly less complicated mechanics as well. Over time, our data indicated that Strike Missions weren’t performing as the content bridge we were hoping for. When we dug into the details of why this was happening, we found a number of reasons that we believed were all contributing factors, and we’ve been attempting to address these over our past few expansions.”

How Raiding Will Change in 2026

Introducing matchmaking to raids could significantly lower the barrier of entry for new players. Raids have always been intimidating as these activities require coordination, strong mechanics knowledge, and optimized gear to succeed. Without friends or guilds to guide them, many players avoided this content entirely.

The new system should ease that pressure by giving players a single, unified path to raid-like encounters, supported by a quickplay queue. It’s an encouraging move that builds on the success of the Fractals’ quickplay system, which already provides a smoother introduction to complex group mechanics not found in open-world content. More importantly the fractals quickplay gives the developers feedback and a foundation to work with as they are likely going to apply the same concept and coding to the raid matchmaking.

Here’s what players can expect when the update rolls out in the first major patch of Visions of Eternity (roughly three months after the expansion’s launch):

• A new raid UI with quality-of-life improvements.

• A list of all raid wings and raid encounters will allow you to go directly to the boss you want to tackle.

• The list includes encounter difficulty ratings to inform players.

• Quickplay mode to assist players in finding a group for easier raid encounters.

• A merged reward system for strikes and raid wings.

• A new Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity raid encounter with a challenge mode (a second raid encounter, a challenge mode, and a legendary mode will come in subsequent updates).

By consolidating Strike Missions and Raids, ArenaNet is making raid content far more accessible to the wider community. For veterans, it means streamlined systems and clearer progression. For newcomers, it provides an easier, more welcoming entry into one of the game’s most demanding activities.

Now, there are a lot of questions about it as it’s not clear if the quickplay raid version will allow players to queue for a specific role, or if there will be gear requirements. The developers are planning to explain it further, but it’s good to know this system is now on track to be in the game in the coming months.

With Visions of Eternity also introducing new Elite Specializations for every class, this update feels like a cornerstone for Guild Wars 2 in 2026, as this is laying the groundwork for smoother systems, a better user experience, and a more connected endgame.

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