Amazon Games, after a history of troubled game releases, is trying to get it right with the MMORPG New World, which has been delayed to September following beta player feedback. New World has had a long road to release, just one victim of the many video game delays over the last year and a half. It was originally supposed to launch in May of 2020, but was delayed by over a year. The game is nearly finished, but players going hands-on in the closed beta in late July/early August, and subsequently providing feedback, seems to have pushed the project even further.
New World has been in development for nearly 5 years, first being revealed in 2016. As the name would suggest, the MMO puts players in the role of a colonizer, exploring a fictional, seventeenth-century island while vying for power, territory, and resources against opposing factions. Despite the magical setting, New World's issues with Native culture erasure and other problematic topics around its imperialistic themes have only added to the tumultuous development cycle. New World has continually weathered the storm, however, and is still on the horizon for release in 2021.
After this most recent delay, New World is set to release on September 28, 2021. Amazon Games seems intent on delivering at least an adequate experience, since the studio has had some trouble breaking into the AAA games scene. MMOs are notoriously expensive and time-consuming to develop, so taking beta feedback to add some extra polish could turn out to be a very smart move.
Amazon's New World Release Could Be A Watershed Moment
Amazon has seemingly struggled to make a name for itself in the games world outside of being the parent company of Twitch. After multiple canceled projects, Amazon's reports of a failing games division highlighted myriad concerns for the studio. Underutilized talent, an odd data-first approach to development, and issues stemming from a proprietary game engine have all been contributing factors, among others, to Amazon's apparent inability to deliver a hit game.
New World is an ambitious attempt, to say the least. The MMORPG genre is tough to break into, consistently being dominated by World of Warcraft and other heavy hitters like Final Fantasy XIV. Luckily for Amazon, the company has adequate money to throw at the costly process of developing such a large game. Even if New World doesn't have a stellar launch, it's a good candidate for a continuous project. By the very nature of MMOs, New World will have to deliver post-launch content anyway, but Final Fantasy XIV is proof of a game being able to turn around a lackluster launch.
Amazon doesn't necessarily have to get into the games industry as a developer, but it continues to be an ever-expanding market. New World's delay is unsurprising amid every other game delay that has come this year, but it's even more unsurprising to see it coming from Amazon Games - a studio that has been trying (and repeatedly failing) to deliver a hit. The New World beta attracted a decent amount of players, and the delay to September 28 in response to criticism is a good sign, making it Amazon's best foothold in games yet.