Amazon has premiered an updated trailer for New World, its first entry into massively multiplayer RPGs. The video mostly offers a broad overview of the game's setting, but including elements from the Amrine Excavation, an Expedition – that is, instanced dungeon – with a mystery up to five players can solve.
The MMO is set in a fantasy realm called Aeternum. Players start shipwrecked on the island and are forced to fight and craft their way towards progress. While superficially similar to other MMOs like World of Warcraft, some unique selling points to New World include classless character development and opportunities for army-sized PvE and PvP battles. Expeditions require between three and five players and involve a mix of cooperative puzzle-solving and combat, including boss encounters. Amazon is promising to make each Expedition unique rather than just ramp up difficulty and loot.
The trailer takes viewers on a tour of many places and activities in Aeternum, among them everything from hunting, fishing, and woodcutting through to magic, battles, and subterranean exploration. The Amrine Excavation is an example of the last, tasking parties with finding the lost team of archeologist Simon Grey. Players will have to reach at least level 25 to participate, yet Amazon describes it as "an introductory experience to Expeditions" – a previously-announced quest, Garden of Genesis, will demand everyone hit level 60. That Expedition involves purging the Blight from a garden where the Angry Earth are born.
New World has proven somewhat controversial since it employs themes and imagery from the colonization of the Americas. This includes not just the notion of settlers conquering a vast wilderness with hostile forces, but similar weapons and clothing styles, even the helmets worn by Spanish conquistadors. Amazon has been careful to play up fantasy aspects – just the premise and name of the game, however, have sometimes been criticized as a reminder of the millions of native people who were killed or enslaved under powers like Spain, France, Portugal, and England. Amazon has told sites like Polygon that it never intended such a link.
The trailer meanwhile confirms that Amazon is still aiming for an August 31 launch date. Alpha testing is underway, and a closed beta is set to begin July 20 – gamers hoping to get into the latter can sign up via the New World website but are only guaranteed a spot if they preorder. Beta accounts will nevertheless be wiped at the end of the testing period on August 2.