Our impressions of one hour of leveling gameplay (Starting Experience)
We had the chance to test the early leveling experience of New World for about an hour. This preview event took place in three parts:
- A first part of general presentation of the game;
- The gameplay phase (see video below);
- A question and answer session.
The experience begins with the creation of the character. Although there is a wide variety of faces, hairstyles, etc., character creation in New World offers very few customization options.
In short, you won’t find a lot of barometers to modify the proportions of your avatar, like in BDO for example. This remains satisfactory, but nothing more.
Once the character has been created, we embark directly on a very nice cinematic that ends with our boat running aground on the island of Aeternum.
As soon as we arrive on the island, the game shows us how to perform the basic actions (block, dodge, perform a light attack, a heavy attack, jump, crouch…). This introductory phase is really well done and allows us to calmly approach the rest of the game.
Once this short introduction phase is over, your avatar arrives at a makeshift camp (a POI, point of interests). Here, an NPC will give you your first quests, allowing you to experiment with harvesting and crafting items for the very first time.
This second phase allows us to explore the surroundings and to familiarise ourselves with the game mechanics and progression.
The feeling of exploration is good, the world is beautiful, coherent and well filled. These first two phases of the game are well thought out and enjoyable.
After a few monsters killed, back and forth to your camp, some harvesting and crafting and then a boss kill, your main quest will send you to the nearest settlement.
You should get there around level 5. The main quest will continue to show/explain the basics of this new environment (bank, auction house, town board, factions…).
Once you have progressed a bit, you will have to choose a faction (around level 8). From there, you’ll start to get a good overview of the leveling patern in New World.
From what we could see in this first session, once established in a colony, you can pick up missions from your faction (faction board) and from the city in question (city board). These missions seem at first sight to be the main source of xp in New World.
In summary: The “Starting Experience” is very well mastered by the game, the discovery is done naturally thanks to the indications that are given. We would have liked a little more customization options for our character, but it’s still decent.
As far as progress is concerned, you quickly reach level 7-8 (most of the players in this session were level 7, I think) which is the end of the tutorial part. At this point, you should have chosen your faction and start experimenting with what we guess is the leveling pattern for the rest of the game.