I’ve returned to one of my favourite pastimes: idly waiting in line for hours on end for the overburdened servers of a massively multiplayer online game.
As soon as Amazon releases its latest video game, New World, I’ll be back to mining ore veins, skinning animal pelts, and handing over ten ghoul heads to a featureless character who promises to reward me with experience points and a longsword with a dexterity bonus.
For a long time now, this genre has been on the decline, with countless World of Warcraft-like games springing up in an attempt to replicate the success of the original. Table Rasa, Warhammer Online, and The Matrix Online. It was a bloodbath because they all fell short.)
A few hub zones, populated by the ghosts of thousands of players, were declared dead by studios as they shifted to the Guild Wars or Destiny multiplayer format.
This makes New World, Amazon Games’ first game since the debacle of Crucible last year, laughably out of date. A genre that had been dormant for decades because the well ran dry has been reanimated by this RPG.
It’s impossible to comprehend the magnitude of the figures. At the time of its release, New World had 650,000 concurrent players, making it the most played new game on Steam and one of the year’s biggest surprises.
Trying to ignore a trend like this is nearly impossible. After all, oppressive Fomo is the primary driving force behind the best MMOs. To pass the time in the lobby, I’m crunching integers on my talent tree and perusing guild recruitment notices on Reddit.
Honestly, I’m shocked. I feel like I’m back in high school.
I’m still not sure if I’m enjoying New World or if I’m just glad to be able to let loose some of my more repressed gaming instincts in this game.
It’s a mythical island called Aeternum where your character washes up on the shores, and it’s covered in a generic tropical colonial aesthetic and an equally generic backstory.
A lot of people are talking about a centrifugal malignant force known as the Corruption. A group of survivors escorted me to the first questing hub with a battered shield and a water-damaged sword.
From that point on, the New World’s fundamentals were laid bare. Base camp wants me to cull the herd of ghostly sailors that live in a nearby shipwreck.
Having dispatched the first batch, I return to the quest giver, who hands me a marginally more effective weapon and explains the next step: a different shipwreck further down the beach, where I must now dispatch some slightly more powerful enemies in search of yet another marginally more effective weapon.
EverQuest has kept us in this cycle, and New World isn’t looking to change things up any time soon. As an alternative, the game relies on gameplay mechanics plucked straight from the top of the Steam charts to support its traditional MMO feel.
Aeternum is home to a diverse ecosystem of trees, plants, and rocks. Your inventory quickly fills up with the bounty of the land, and before you know it, you’ve built up a vast web of blueprints. You get the picture. No one should be surprised that Minecraft’s DNA has found its way into this industry.
To be honest, even for someone who used to treat MMOs as a second job, the rigours of New World have quickly grown tiresome.
During my gaming sessions, I’m frequently interrupted by a trip to town, where I complete tasks and smelt iron ore for meagre amounts of experience points.
It’s as if the game wants to show me how far away I really am from the promised land. Do you want to learn how to make musket bullets? Charcoal, linen, flint, and saltpetre are all scattered around the island, so you’ll need to go looking for them.
I wish you the best of luck! I used to be willing to give up all of my free time in the name of progress, but now I’m unsure if New World is worthy of my weekends and holidays.
Some of the drudgery is alleviated by Amazon’s formidable fighting skills. All of the thrusts and ripostes are mapped to the keyboard, so there’s no blatant auto-attack here.. As a result, New World is a far more cutting-edge MMO than anything else currently available.
Both the player’s ability and the character’s stats affect the character’s power level. Players as low as level 30 have been reported to have defeated opponents as high as level 60, according to rumours I’ve read in the chat.
This adds an intriguing twist to the already brutal combat with other players. Everyone on an Aeternum server is divided into one of three factions, each of which is constantly fighting for control of the continent.
Those factions’ player-run guilds can take control of certain settlements, where they can set tax rates and earn passive income from commerce. New World is home to an intriguing anarcho-capitalist experiment, but you’ll have to stick around for a while to see what it is.
Perhaps this is why I keep returning. There are still many interesting late-game quests in New World despite the game’s intransigence and the fact that I’ll probably need another 80 hours of play to fully explore its many intriguing aspects.
There is no doubt that Amazon has a good understanding of the people in my stock; it knows that we are suckers who enjoy watching our cooking skills go from 13 to 14, and then 15 after that. (Wow, take a look!) I’ve learned how to make butter!
The chat box in the corner of the screen is a constant stream of activity, as my fellow players seek out groups and advertise their wares just like they used to.
I can’t believe how wonderful it is to play an MMO at its peak. It’s impossible not to get giddy. As tedious and as overbearing as New World is, it’s also one of the most widely-played RPGs in decades, so it still provides the Fomo.
PC version of New World is now available for purchase for £34.99.
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