Amazon’s New World is an upcoming MMORPG set loosely in the colonial era with a supernatural (distinctly not high-fantasy) twist. The player shipwrecks on the mysterious island of Aeternum and discovers three (player) factions vying for survival and dominance of an uncharted island full of pirate zombies and choppable trees. The game features action combat, as is common in newer MMOs, instead of the older but still popular tab target of WoW or FF14. The game, while having a variety of types of content such as PVP, PVE and gathering, is very much not for everyone. Those expecting a WoW-clone or wanting the heavy survival or hard-core PVP elements of the early builds might be disappointed. Who then, is this game for?
This feedback is based on their July 2021 beta test and the content of which we are aware of at the time of this post.
PVP (World and Company vs Company)
The player versus player elements mostly do not come in the form of instanced PVP. Essentially all of the PVP revolves around factions and companies (guilds). Those interested in open world and non-instanced PVP should seek out this game.
- Outpost Rush: Instanced 20v20 objective based mode for level 60 players only. Given the level requirement, I haven’t seen this tested much yet.
- World PVP: While in the open world, you can mark yourself as flagged for PVP and fight any member of the other faction who is also flagged. These players will have an indicator by their portrait. However, you’ll still be in the same instance as non-flagged players, so there will be enemy forces that are non-interactable. Additionally, in the open world PVP, you can attempt to take an enemies fort gaining a slight benefit in that area for your faction. Finally, there are PVP faction quests to gain reputation with your faction and contribute to the next area.
- Territory Control: After doing enough PVP faction objectives, a Company can declare war on another. The war happens at a time determined by the defenders and then a 50v50 match takes place. This is probably what most people focus on for PVP as the pinnacle of it for the game.
PVE (Question and Dungeons)
As is typical with MMOs, there are quest hubs that give a variety of quests to gain gear, resources and experience. Honestly, PVE is where this game struggles.
- Main Story Quest: As it sounds, this is where the main story takes place. The quests will be clearly marked as main story and will take you through the required elements of the game giving certain unlocks, and teaching you the story of the world.
- Town Mission Board: Essentially infinitely repeatable quests. These are the most typical of MMO quests: Collect X things, Kill X things, Gather X things, and in this case, Craft X things. A little dull, but not terrible to fill up you journal with when you head out into the world. Seen as the most efficient means of leveling.
- Faction Mission Board: Well, mostly the same as the town board but you get rep and currency for your faction. Pretty important for gear and progression.
- Side Quests: Certain NPCs will give random story nuggets in the form of side quests. Some of these are neat, some are the same as the others.
- Corrupted Breaches: Two types (minor and major) corrupted zones can spawn in the world. Go there, kill a few waves of mobs, then kill a boss or a larger wave and “cleanse” the area to be rewarded with a quest or two worth of XP and the chance at decent loot. After enough of these, corruption invasions are triggered.
- Dungeons: Somewhat standard MMO affairs with varying trash packs and boss mobs. These mix it up a little bit with some puzzle elements which provides a nice change of pace. The major downside to these are the extensive requirements to craft a key stone to gain access to a dungeon. You cannot just repeatedly run dungeons without farming materials for the key or bringing in new members who already have one. Worse, there are only 6 dungeons in total throughout the game at levels 25, 35, 45, 55 and 2 for max level. As of the time of this writing, these dungeons don’t scale in difficulty, style or reward, leaving only 2 dungeons to run at max level.
While the main story quest is fine, the mission boards and side quests are the epitome of standard MMO quests. The randomly spawning corruption zones add some diversity in the world, but many other games have done this on a larger and more interesting scale. The dungeons, while also fine, are very much crippled by the inability to run them at will. If you have a primary interest in standard “WoW-style” PVE content in the form of dungeons and raids, this game is not for you.
Gathering & Crafting
I haven’t played every MMO, but I’ve played a lot of them and this has one of the best gathering and crafting system I’ve encountered. It gives a very Skyrim feel of being able to harvest everything. It is not uncommon, when off on some quest or another, to find yourself in an entirely different area because you’ve been so distracted gathering resources. This is also what rewards exploration the most – finding the more rare resources.
- Almost every rock, mineral, tree, and plant is able to be gathered.
- Fishing is a little more interactive than in most games.
- Each character can craft all types of craftables.
- It takes an incredible amount of time to max any gatherable. This could be good or bad depending on your perspective. Someone who focuses in one type early on will be fairly unique, however for those used to quicker profession leveling they may be frustrated.
- Many crafts have optional materials for more perks.
TL;DR
This is for those who prefer:
- Open world PVP
- Guild vs guild style PVP
- Deep and potent gathering & crafting systems
- Casual PVE questing content
This is not for those who prefer:
- Instanced PVP (battlegrounds/arenas)
- Instanced PVE (raids/repeatable dungeons)
- Competitive or scaling PVE content