Whether you’re a professional gamer or a casual gaming observer who enjoys playing bingo online for money while enjoying video games, you’ve probably heard about Amazon’s new game (New World). The long-awaited game debuted last month after many delays this year, following the failure of Amazon’s previous title, Crucible. That makes New World a high-stakes game release for this e-commerce giant.
While the success of the massively multiplayer game can only be accessed in years or months to come, New World has started well. The game has more concurrent players than its competitors at the moment, as well as Twitch viewers. Let’s read more about what players should know about New World in this article.
What’s New World?
New World is a Massive Multiplayer Online game created by Amazon Games. The game is exclusively available on PC and has everything you’d expect to see from a big-budget MMO title in 2021. There is a wide range of modes including player-versus-environment and player-versus-player, deep roleplaying options, and a vast world of varied environments.
Like every MMO game, you’ll need to play New World to get a good grasp of its many elements. Fortunately, there is an outline:
This new MMO game takes place on a fictional island known as Aeternum, located in Atlantic City. That means you’ll be playing as an explorer, looking to colonize this island, which is also home to a magical compound known as Azoth. Unfortunately, the substance makes the local flora and fauna hostile to you and animates dead explorers that came to the Island before you. That means the Island will try to kill you and you need to harness Azoth’s power to fight back.
When you start New World, you will need to choose between three factions, The Covenant, The Syndicate, and The Marauders. Every faction has companies within it for you to join, similar to what’s known as clans or guilds in other games. These companies work together to get settlements scattered around Aeternum and you can turn them into player cities that need to be protected.
The game also features four computer-controlled factions known as The Lost, The Ancient, The Corrupted, and The Angry Earth. That means you’ll need to pledge your allegiance to one of them for assistance in battle, as the player-controlled factions are usually at war.
What about Multiplayer?
Player-controlled factions form the basis of the New World multiplayer experiences. New World also comes with four distinct multiplayer modes; Invasions, Expeditions, War Mode, and Outpost Rush. These modes entail:
- Expedition – This mode is the conventional MMO dungeon, where you partner with four other players to take down bad guys and solve puzzles.
- Invasion – This PvE mode involves working with 49 other players to defend your fort against lots of computer-controlled adversaries. However, you must survive for 30 minutes to win.
- War Mode – This 100-person PvP mode pits a faction against the other and you can choose to either defend your fort or attack another.
- Output Rush – This PvPvE mode is a little more complicated than the rest, featuring a 20v20 battle where teams fight against each other to defend and capture outposts while fighting computer-controlled enemies.
Why is this MMO Game a Big Deal for Amazon?
Amazon Games announced they’ll be moving away from mobile titles in 2014 and had started creating To-Fu Furry and Airport Mania. That would allow them to embark on developing AAA games to compete with studios like Ubisoft, Activision-Blizzard, and Square Enix. In 2016, Amazon Games also announced three titles, including New World, Crucible, and Breakaway.
Breakaway was designed as a combination of the League of Legends and Rocket League targeting esports fans, but the project was canceled in 2018. On the other hand, Crucible is a team-based shooter game similar to Overwatch and was planned for release in March last year, but Amazon shut it down due to poor response.
New World is crucial for Amazon Games since it comes as a much-needed win for the studio. The game’s release was postponed three times, as the title was originally set for launch in May 2020, although the launch was pushed to August 2021.
What is New World’s Response So Far?
New World’s response exuded mixed reactions on the release day, but most negative reviews on the game were related to the long queues before getting into the game’s servers. Unfortunately, there aren’t many critical reviews at the moment, although the game has attracted the attention of many players.
New World is currently the most-watched and most played PC game globally. The game packs 542,000 concurrent players through Steam and over 620,000 people watching New World gameplay on Twitch, with more coming in. That exceeds the numbers recorded by Grant Theft Auto 5 (230,000) and Apex Legends (110,000), making New World the biggest PC game on the market right now.
One doesn’t swear any allegiance to any of the 4 “enemy factions” — and there are actually 5… you left out the “beasts” ;-)
Unless there’s something in the Outpost Rush mechanics that I’m not aware of, since that’s said to be PvPvE, but I’ve not heard anyone in or out of the game mention anything about faction stuff.
Overall, I’m having a good time in the world, but it’s more enjoying the atmosphere of it while randomly harvesting everything than anything. I don’t think I’ll be thinking much about the game after Endwalker releases though….