As the Open Beta for New World’s soft-relaunch, New World: Aeternum, drew to a close on Monday September 16th, we took off for California by invitation from Amazon Games. In anticipation of its MMORPG update, the development team invited us to visit the Orange County studio, to test the content to be released on October 15th, and to interview the developers of New World: Aeternum.
As we mentioned at the launch of its open beta[Link to the Open Beta article], New World is set to (re)launch on October 15th in a new version called New World: Aeternum. New features include a console release (Xbox Series and PlayStation 5), a Free For All (FFA) PvP zone, a ten-player raid, a new type of PvE instance (the Trial of the Souls), an redesigned main quest (now fully playable alone), an increased maximum gearscore (now up to 725), cross-server arenas, various optimizations (including integration of the DX12 rendering library), and finally drum roll the introduction of swimming!
To mark the opening of this new chapter, Amazon Games organized a press-only preview at its Orange County studio in Irvine, California. Alongside other journalists from the United States, Great Britain and Germany, we were able to preview the launch trailer, attend a presentation of some of the new features, test the PvP FFA zone, the end-game Soul Trials and the 10-player raid, as well as interview the developers[link to interview transcript article – video below instead].
Redesigned main quest and single-player contents
As announced in June at the Summer Game Fest, New World: Aeternum is now described as an action RPG, highlighting its combat system and the possibility of a single-player adventure until the end of the main quest (which, in fact, also matches the end of the leveling process). With this in mind, New World: Aeternum introduces a new type of PvE instance, the Soul Trials. These new challenges (a solo boss kill) can be encountered as you level up, but also once you’ve reached maximum level, so that you can regularly obtain better equipment. Each such instance is available once a day.
We had the opportunity to test the three Level 65 Soul Trials: Beyond the Gates, The Last Soulwarden and Tempest’s Mind. It seems that each of these instances features a protagonist from the story, but in a revisited fight ( respectively the Leviathan, Yonas and Isabella). The first two battles were relatively straightforward. The third, against Isabella, was more demanding, foreshadowing some of the mechanics the player will encounter in the Tempest’s Heart dungeon later in the adventure.
All end-game activities are now available in a new window called « Activity Finder« . These include the already existing PvE expeditions and mutated expeditions, the aforementioned Trials of Souls, the former 12-20-player Sand Worm raid under the Elite Trials category (it’s likely that more of the same type of challenge will be added to this category later on), the new raid (same as above), as well as six-player Season Trials, which we imagine will be expanded with each new season. As for PvP, there are no surprises: the classic Outpost Rush and 3v3 Arena modes are still there.
Whether in terms of character progression (main quest), increasing gearscore (Trial of the Souls) or beaconing the way to end-game activities (activity finder screen), New World: Aeternum is far more player-directed than ever before. The player is guided through a signposted path, worthy of a genuine “Theme Park” MMORPG.
Technical optimizations and new PvP features
From the very moment you launch the game, you can feel that a great deal of optimization work has been carried out. Performance is much better, movements smoother and the combat system has been perfected (although it would appear that some fine-tuning is still required). New options affecting combat have also been added. In addition, a few nuances have been implemented to make joystick control more enjoyable (button assignment, aiming aid, fine-tuning of joystick “dead zones”, etc.).
On the PvP front, the redesign of Cutlass Keys into a free-for-all zone, the Cursed Mists, is a major addition, and could even be described as a figurehead for New World: Aeternum. The zone has been extensively modified and extended to create an interesting playground. It features all kinds of high-level resources, as well as chests containing “doubloons”. This new currency can be used to purchase various types of items (equipment, food, gypsum orbs, dark matter, etc.), including legendary equipment that can be upgraded to the new maximum gearscore – 725.
As for the PvE content mentioned above, we were able to test the new PvP zone with other journalists and developers. As soon as you enter the zone, delimited by a blue-ish-transparent area on the map, you are automatically flagged for PvP. The zone funnels, so to speak, from east to west, so battles tend to be concentrated at the entrance (which also happens to be the exit – important!). The concentration of rare resources here is far higher than in the rest of the world.
As mentioned above, you can find doubloons in chests, but also by killing monsters. Note that you will lose half of these doubloons (except the first 100), as well as all your resources, if you are defeated before reaching the exit. These items can then be looted by other players.
Finally, unlike the other chests in New World, Cursed Mists chests are not instanced. This means that they can only be opened by one player at a time, and then, once opened, disappear for other players. It is possible, for example, to “steal” a chest from another player by interrupting his opening process. This characteristic of Cursed Mists chests is intended to stimulate players to confront themselves in PvP, and to prevent collusion (i.e. secret agreements between several players to the detriment of another one). However, given the behavior patterns of PvPers in MMORPGs, it’s reasonable to assume that this measure alone won’t completely prevent collusion between players.
Hive of Gorgons, the 10-player raid
To round off this test session, we had the opportunity to enter the new 10-player raid, Hive of Gorgons. Of course, in such cases, it’s rare for a team of journalists to get through the end-game content (some of us had never touched New World before the recent open beta). Typically, we do a few tries per boss to get a glimpse of the mechanics, clean up the trash mobs in between, solve the puzzles, then the developers, with a wave of their magic wand, kill the boss so we can move on and see as much as possible.
As usual in New World’s dungeons and raids, you’re struck by the atmosphere and the special attention paid to the instanced environments. In my opinion, the scenery in Hive of Gorgons is on a par with what we’ve come to expect from the game. It seems that the raid also benefits from its own music!
We progress through the instance, clearing several groups of trash mobs and solving a puzzle, before encountering the first boss. He dominates our group from the cliff in front of us. As we engage in a fight, he leaps spectacularly to make his way into the arena below. Although we didn’t get very far in the confrontation, I found the mechanics deep and interesting enough to make the fight engaging.
Once the boss has been defeated (with developer commands, of course), we continue our progression, in a similar way, through groups of trash mobs and puzzles (special mention for the labyrinth), before coming face to face with the second boss. This one is visually less impressive, but the fight is no less interesting. Its mechanics reminded me those of Anpu, one of Ennead’s two final bosses.
In short, Hive of Gorgons appears to be a challenging raid whose atmosphere, alongside the other instances of the game, has been particularly fine-tuned by the developers. The raid is designed for a group of 10 players and contains 3 bosses.
What perspectives for New World: Aeternum?
It’s worth noting that after the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, the pace of content releases slowed significantly, coinciding with the presumed beginning of Aeternum development. For example, several major features were released between seasons 1 and 3 (Gearsets, Transmogrification, Raid Group, Inter-server OPR, Influence Race, Mounts…), while only a few (Inter-server Expeditions and Controller support) were released between seasons 4 and 5. This slowdown in releases, combined with the announcement of New World: Aeternum, seen as being primarily aimed at the console market, led to strong and sudden hostility within the PC player community.
During the round table discussion[Link to the round table transcript] we attended, the developers explained that they had prioritized the console release over the development of new content for PC, in order to guarantee a stable experience for the entire community. This phase of development for consoles would have enabled a complete reworking of the game’s technical aspects. It should be noted that the PC community had regularly asked for improvements in stability, which led the developers to adopt a strategy aimed at meeting these expectations while preparing the arrival of console players.
Although New World: Aeternum introduces notable content such as Cursed Mists, Soul Trials and a 10-player raid, it’s fair to ask whether these new features will be enough to restore the trust of disappointed players. Meanwhile, the technical revamp we mentioned in our interview[link to interview transcript article] should enable the developers to focus once again on creating new content, as they did between seasons 1 and 3 – not least because this new version is designed to attract new players, and we can imagine that the developer will be keen to retain them over the long term by regularly adding new content to the game.
It will undoubtedly be difficult to reconcile dissatisfied players with the development team. Nevertheless, this update could set the groundwork for a renewal. If the game manages to establish a regular development cycle and capitalize on the momentum created by the influx of console players, New World: Aeternum could succeed in restoring its reputation over the medium to long term.