There’s still nothing quite like the original Guild Wars. It came out before World of Warcraft had crystallized the face of the modern MMORPG, and was as inspired by Magic: The Gathering as it was by Everquest or Ultima. It turned out as more of a co-op ARPG with shared town hubs, dual-class deckbuilding, and a cutscene-driven narrative—and that unique confluence of inspirations may be why it’s still popular today. So popular, in fact, that it’s even a surprise to developer ArenaNet.

The game’s recent remaster, Guild Wars Reforged, launched Wednesday as a free update for existing players and an inexpensive way to get in for newbies. While most Guild Wars fans are on to the game’s more traditionally MMO-ish sequel, Reforged still brought the game’s concurrent player peak on Steam up to over 5,000 at time of writing, according to SteamDB.

That may not sound like a lot, but it’s floated for the last several years at around 200-600, and since the game came to Steam relatively late in its life, there’s likely a big contingent of people playing on the standalone client available on ArenaNet’s website (anecdotally, that’s how I play both Guild Wars games when the mood strikes).

The population surge was met with surprise from ArenaNet, which shared a post on X saying, “Demand for Guild Wars Reforged blew past our projections, causing long downloads for some non-Steam players. We’re adding servers & exploring new options to fix this before the weekend. Thanks for your patience!”

Mercifully, it doesn’t sound like anything game breaking or even unexpected when an online game gets such a sudden spike of players. If anything, I’m just happy to see people diving into the original Guild Wars; the remaster doesn’t look like a huge iteration on the original game, but the chance to see pre-Searing Ascalon abuzz with novice players once again is a tantalizing prospect indeed.