The waves crash against the ship’s underbelly, a shipmate mops bird droppings, and sea brine splash high in the air. You’re on board the Immortal Glory en route to Aeternum in pursuit of a new life; You don’t know what awaits you in this foreign land, but you are excited nonetheless. However, during a tropical storm that has seemingly appeared from nowhere, the once-sturdy and, perceived, indomitable Immortal Glory capsizes and you are flung overboard. You slam onto the undulating water’s surface, you submerge and reemerge over and over again until you black out from exhaustion. The sun blazes overhead, and you awake with a mouthful of sand, hair flaked with sand, clothes littered in sand, and sand in the most undesirable places. You have landed, in a sort of modest grandiose fashion, on Aeternum, where a new life awaits you, and, one could even say, where a New World is waiting.
New World is a brand new MMO RPG published and developed by Amazon Game Studios, and while being its first entry, they have already established themselves brazenly. While not being entirely perfect, ( and far from balanced) my time with New World has been a blast for the most part, whether it was doing something as tedious as mining or tree cutting or even something more action-packed, such as participating in a war effort against an opposing faction. However, while I enjoyed the game in my 60-some hours of playtime, I can definitely see where complaints are being derived from and the issues the title boasts.
The gameplay of New World is where most of the meat of the game resides, and while it COULD be more complicated than it appears to be, that complexity is easily surmised by an emerging meta and brute forcing. What is primarily meant by this, I will get into in a minute, but first lets address the basics. The perspective is in third-person and the UI, while being a little bloated, does what it needs to do; It tells the player their health, their stamina, their mana, and any active buffs/debuffs. Adding onto that, the inventory UI, being bloated as well, simply shows weapons, crafting materials, cooking materials, and armor; It is fairly generic when looking at it, but MMOs already contain so much fluff, devs need not complicate things further.
Onto the actual combat of the game, and while this may sound redundant and cliché, it feels as if it is a MMO souls-like, but excluding the difficulty connotation that word entails. The game isn’t necessarily difficult, but the dodge rolling, equip load, and this overall hit and dodge formula really reminds me of the Soulsborne series, and PVP furthers this feeling. While being fun with the first encounters I had, there is a serious problem regarding balance; A level 57 can fight a level 13 if they both have PVP flags enabled (in order to PVP a player must go to a sanctuary and enable it, and cannot disable until a return to a sanctuary), and I am pretty sure I don’t need to point out this glaringly problematic issue. Damage doesn’t scale to a lower level’s constitution, so if that level 57 can dish out 1500 damage in one hit, that level 13 is most assuredly going to die. It is seemingly unfair, but I can see the argument as to how that is the danger of activating PVP; However, this rebuttal seems to forego the idea that this game is primarily PVP based, and if one removes that crucial element of the game, they’re pretty much stuck with a lackluster 3-D Stardew Valley.
PVP aside, PVE seems to be simply alright and nothing more than simple, archaic enemies (skeletons and undead) littering the landscape with a bunch of fetch quests. Actually, scratch the final part of the previous statement, all the quests within New World are fetch quests. They are usually boring and tedious with no layer of depth within any of them, but it could be argued that MMOs aren’t made for intriguing story-lines or quest design, but it seems like a missed opportunity to me. Amazon Games could have done something completely new, or even revolutionized the MMO genre if they had taken this risk, but unfortunately they played it safe. Back onto the subject of combat, the way you level up in this MMO is by using the specific skill you are trying to level up, much like Skyrim and its abilities. If you want to level up tree cutting, you have to go cut a lot of trees, and if you want to level up smithing, be prepared to go scouring for untouched ore alongside 10 other players. Weapons follow this same structure; If you want to level up your sword and shield, you have to accumulate experience points for it by using it, and this works for the other weapons as well. This brings to mind another issue with the game; For the setting and the theme Amazon went for, they only added 11 weapons, and while it could be argued that they all have exceedingly complex skill trees (they don’t), it sort of feels as if the time period in which the game boasts is neglected. If one had wanted to be a swash buckling pirate, why isn’t there pistols? If one wanted to be a rogue, why isn’t there daggers? This is primarily a personal trifle I had felt, but I do feel as if it is founded nonetheless. There is also a serious lack of polish done on the rapier skill tree alongside the musket’s, as they feel sort of worthless when compared to their superior counterparts (Hatchet and Bow). Also, the Great Axe is exceedingly overpowered, more so in PVP.
Now onto the most positive experiences I had with New World and its gameplay; The war aspect of the PVP is awe-inspiring to say the least. Running alongside 40+ players and crashing headlong onto an enemies defenses will always give me goosebumps. Rallying your faction (the game boasts 3, and they can control territories, thus giving benefits to their members) into a war party just exudes that RP element that other MMOs lack. I remember that in an assault my faction had launched onto Syndicate (Purple) territory we had all typed into group chats some awesome quotes (definitely some vulgar ones) as we all rushed into battle. It was really fun to say the least.
Wrapping up my usual structure of review, I will skim my critique of music and story of this game. They are exceedingly dull and boring and do nothing to substantiate the game; they just exist to make sure the game has it (seriously I have played decades-old games with better soundtracks/stories).
In conclusion, New World is far from perfect, but if playing solo or even with friends, it is a blast from start to finish. I give it a solid 8/10 as even though it has a lot of problems with balancing and quest design, the overall feeling of adventuring through this uncharted land almost surmises these issues (yet they will occasionally hiccup the experience).
P.S if this review has convinced you in any way to pick up the title, don’t forget to join the marauders (best faction).
For more information, please visit: https://www.newworld.com/en-us/
PC Review
Whether it be diving deep into uncharted oceanic depths, wading through knee-deep pools of demon blood, or taking a leisurely walk through a fictional western frontier, I am always eager to explore previously unknown sectors of the creative space, impatiently overturning every stone begging to be flipped over. Dabbling in both speculative and realistic fiction, with a sprinkle of journalistic fanaticism, I enjoy any game that displays narrative magnificence, or if it's just plain fun!
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