After several months of beta testing, Amazon Games' highly anticipated MMORPG New World has finally launched and has already gained a substantial player base of would-be adventurers in search of lore and treasures on the island of Aeternum. In New World, players create and control an adventurer who becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck on the mysterious island of Aeternum, where death is not truly permanent. While there, players will increase their standing, join factions and companies and vie for territory, and uncover the mysteries of the corruption appearing across the landscape.
Most of New World's early game focuses on learning the basics of combat. Players begin with a sword and shield but will quickly receive a starter weapon of almost every possible variety. Character abilities are not determined by class, but rather by weapon proficiency, and all players can become proficient in multiple weapons. As characters level up, they can increase their skills in Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Focus, and Constitution to improve their damage output with their loadout of choice. Apart from combat, players will also harvest plants and foods, track and hunt wildlife from sheep and rabbits to alligators and wolves, mine and log for resources, and craft new gear. As they level up gathering and crafting proficiencies, more resources with better stats and perks become available to them.
The later-game content of New World includes most of the PvP experiences, like Outpost Rush and wars, and expeditions, this MMO's version of dungeons or raids. Many of these opportunities require teammates and cooperative action, though factions and companies make it easier for players to make new friends and form PvP units. While it is often said the journey is more rewarding than the destination, New World's journey requires a significant grind to reach the current endgame. Despite the size of the world and breathtaking environments, it can start to feel like there is very little to do in New World right now, especially for players who prefer not to engage in PvP, and a content update may be needed sooner rather than later to keep the game feeling fresh longterm for the greatest number of players.
The first hours of New World are, in a word, excellent. Character creation is nice if not somewhat simplistic. The hairstyle and skin tone options, while not especially deep, have a good variety so far. Eventually, it would be excellent if these options were expanded, and if players could select more details about their character, like each individual facial feature rather than face shape, or body type beyond male or female presentation. Once players reach the island, the onboarding process is particularly smooth, with tutorial quests that give players just enough guidance to be successful but enough agency to forge their own way forward and discover features for themselves. Once an adventurer reaches one of the four starting settlement zones, the whole of Aeternum feels open for exploration.
The visuals and soundtrack for New World are absolutely stunning. Players will explore lush, wild biomes, dark, labyrinthine caverns, and bustling towns. Despite how full New World servers have been since launch, there are locations players can travel not far from their settlement that feel truly isolated. The landmarks are fitting and well-designed, from run-down farms to shipwrecks to forts and everything in between. The ambient noises fully immerse the player in the wild, magical feeling of the environment, and the score is fitting for the atmosphere.
Similarly, the mechanics, especially combat, feels unique. Unlike most traditional MMOs, New World incorporates traditional Western action RPG combat. Players will need to learn to dodge, block, and aim to use their weapon of choice effectively and evade enemies like drowned sailors and Withered. Targeting matters, and it is remarkably easy to whiff on a strike with a sword or a blast with a Life Staff if the crosshairs are not properly positioned on the enemy.
Enemy types are not significantly varied yet, so it can be easy for players to learn the rhythm of every mob's signature attack - the Retchers and characters like them vomit diseased balls of magic to hurl at the player, for example, and wolves of all kinds use leaping attacks. With time, developers should make sure to vary these creatures, their attack patterns and tells, and encourage further combat strategizing. It is possible this is part of the reason New World feels so skewed toward PvP, as that style of combat tends to be far more variable and interesting. However, more time is needed to reach endgame content and determine whether this also applies to expeditions.
Likely the biggest drawback to New World right now is the grind of quest progression and leveling up. Many of the quests needed to level a character and reach the dungeons and other endgame content are something of a grind, requiring players to venture further and further from their starting settlement to complete various, often repetitive fetch quests for NPCs and their factions. The constant need to travel back and forth between settlement, camp, and wilderness without mounts can become grating to fans of traditional MMOs. The New World map isn't especially large, but it can get tedious to traverse for such small rewards until characters can enter more challenging zones. Fast travel is also problematic, with players only able to recall to a settlement's inn once every hour or use fast travel points for Azoth, a resource they must farm from exploration. This can artificially extend the early game significantly, especially for players who venture far from the starting zone.
There is also something to be said about the territory and war mechanics in New World. At first glance, they seem like fun ways for players to compete with others as factions. However, the pro-colonization undertones of these features cannot be ignored, and they also have a tendency to encourage in-game toxicity, especially on servers on which certain factions dominate. Even spending just a few moments in a faction, especially in an area controlled by another faction, triggers a feeling of "us against them" that is hard to ignore, especially when those two factions are at war. Global chat is often bursting with activity, particularly messages laced with expletives. Given New World skews fairly strongly toward PvP over PvE gameplay, it is possible for players to hash out disagreements in-game with combat by raising their PvP flag and testing their skills and weapon proficiencies. Time will tell, however, if hostilities cool or heighten with more updates, skirmishes, and events.
New World is a stunning and technical and visual masterpiece, but it is still very clearly in its infancy. What is available from launch day, however, is enjoyable, immersive, and polished, with great opportunities for growth. As more content is released, and activities are diversified, New World has the potential to become a powerhouse MMO on the same level as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV. What content gets added, and when, is likely to dictate the game's longevity following its success at launch. It is possible players less interested in PvP experiences will want to wait a little while before diving into New World, as the current PvE experience can grow stale quickly with a lack of variety for enemies and encounters. Amazon Games may also want to address the ways a reliance on faction mentality for a sense of camaraderie and the glorification of colonialism and war could inherently contribute to infighting and toxicity within the community as New World grows. Overall, however, New World shows a lot of promise and has plenty of room to continue introducing unique and genre-defining ideas to the MMO space.
This review will be updated with a final score and a discussion of end-game content at a later date.
New World is available now on PC. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam code for the purpose of this review.