New World: Aeternum will right the ship for Amazon's MMO

Amazon Games is looking to address long standing issues and change the narrative with the release of New World: Aeternum. This reimagining of the 2021 MMO comes with a new philosophy—one that takes the emphasis off of required multiplayer cooperation and reduces the grind that made the original game feel like a chore. I got to experience it first-hand at Amazon Games HQ in Irvine, California.

One thing that the creative minds behind New World: Aeternum emphasized during my visit was that they wanted to reduce the time it took for players to reach endgame content. In the original New World, it took approximately 165 hours to reach the level that would unlock the MMO’s most challenging and rewarding content. This time has been reduced to nearly a third of that in New World: Aeternum, streamlining the process and helping players get to the content they want to enjoy faster.

New World: Aeternum also scraps the mandatory multiplayer segments that were a hang-up for some players in the base game. The story content in New World: Aeternum can be played from beginning to end completely solo. It’s a change in philosophy that explains why Amazon Games is billing this relaunch as an “action RPG” and not an “MMO.”

Of course, the world of Aeternum is still filled with other players whom you will organically cross paths with, and you can still team up with them to defeat enemies out in the wild, or complete quests. The idea is that this collaboration will happen organically and when desired, rather than out of necessity.

The map in New World: Aeternum has been revitalized with new points of interest and expanded zones. There is a large section of the world that’s designated for PvP (player vs player) combat, and you will be automatically flagged for PvP when entering them. These locations are appropriately filled with stronger enemies and valuable loot, but dying means you’ll drop the goodies that you’ve collected.

This creates an extraction-style gameplay loop, where players must balance the amount of treasure they hoard with escaping in one piece. I got into several clashes with other players as I attempted to escape the PvP zones.

Speaking of working with other players, a large chunk of my playing time with New World: Aeternum was with raids. Our group consisted of ten players broken into two groups. We fought through a series of difficult enemies and puzzles to reach bosses.

The developers stressed to us that cooperation would be paramount to beat a raid in New World, which I learned quickly. We organized our approach to every encounter, letting our tank take the lead and get aggro while DPS characters sent in attacks from a distance. During one section, we had to navigate a maze while evading serpent-like gorgons that could insta-kill us with their deadly gaze.

Our raid culminated with a battle against Typhon, a wolf-like beast that manipulated the battlefield to create hazards. His abilities included a mark that would cause spikes to appear under a player’s feet and a charging attack that we combated by leading him into large pillars in the arena. We spent just over an hour on the raid and weren’t able to beat it, but got a taste of what we can expect from New World: Aeternum’s most challenging content.

In my 2021 review of New World, I was impressed with the foundation Amazon Games had laid but felt there was plenty of room for improvement. It seems that New World: Aeternum is looking to address common feedback from fans while crafting an experience that’s more welcoming to casual players.

These impressions are based on a build played at the Amazon Games office. New World: Aeternum launches on October 15, 2024, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_