A little over 2 years after the launch of Amazon’s first foray into the MMO market, I finally caved into trying New World out after a lot of you guys kept recommending it to me during my livestreams. In 2023 when there are so many good games that have come out or are coming out on top of an insane backlog of games, I still felt that MMORPG itch as a lot of you probably do. I feel this itch in the sense that I’m sort of aimlessly wandering around waiting for a MMO that is going to be my new MMO home; something I can play continuously without getting burnt out or bored.
The current options on the market feel lacking, outdated or just not at all engaging for me to seriously consider them to be that main MMO, a lot of them definitely feel like you’re pushed to play seasonally or on a casual cycle which is fine but it’s just not what I want. Just a headsup, this isn’t a video like many others you can find on the Internet that say oh you should play New World or you shouldn’t because in no way do I have enough playtime as of this point in time to judge and say okay this endgame is such and such and this is how it all works or this is the real community and this is how the people are. Instead, this is a video based on my impressions of New World as both a completely new player to New World and from an experienced MMO perspective.
Character Creation and Overland
Starting with an introductory cutscene then to the character creation after paying 40 dollars, I wasn’t too impressed by the choices offered to me in terms of the hair styles, body or face options, markings or even the colors. But this is okay considering the best things I’ve heard about New World have nothing to do with the character customization anyway and I was sure there would be ingame fashion anyway like transmog or armor styles and so forth. I did like the transition from character creation to cutscene which I think was very creative and well done. Curiously compared to most other MMOs I’ve played, New World does NOT offer classes, instead a typical class system is replaced by a weapons and armor system that help determine both your build and role functionality. More on this later when we cover combat.
After character creation, I got flung into the beginnings of New World’s questing, lore and overland content. I appreciated the brief tutorial on controls and some of the tooltip vernacular. I really appreciate the clean User Interface or UI of the game. Everything is self-explanatory so long as you take the time to read the tooltips for the abilities, the armor weights, the weapons, the various menus and filters and so on. I think the UI and User Experience of New World is pretty easy to approach as both a new player and a seasoned MMO player which is a big plus for this game. I also love the fact that New World has ingame proximity voice chat, something that I haven’t seen abused surprisingly by a lot of the players I encountered in towns or PvP which might mean a lot of people have voice chat muted or the voice chat is moderated heavily by Amazon, the latter I hope for as I strongly believe the potential immersive quality of ingame voice chat or the ease in which you could communicate with PUGs without the need for 3rd party software are pretty good positives that outweigh negatives for gameplay.
I would say the first thing I absolutely love about New World is that unlike some other MMOs or multiplayer games, there’s a very real chance for you to actually die in the PvE overland content.
This isn’t to say that overland is impossible or so challenging you will get extremely frustrated, but more so that depending on where you are during your progression from level 1 to 60 or 65, not respecting mob damage, not respecting elite mobs, not healing can get you killed, not blocking or side stepping some things can prove dangerous and so on. A big part of why I think the overland challenges work here is also in how alive the enemies feel in terms of their movement and actions when you’re engaging them. In a lot of other games, enemies tend to stay static or in one position for you to hit but in New World a good amount of the mobs can move quite a bit or put pressure on your camera forcing you to actually look around or put more effort into aiming and it makes the world and gameplay feel a bit more alive and reactive to what you may be doing in the moment which I think is another huge plus.
Music and Audio
Another big contributor to my enjoyment of New World definitely is the audio of the game. The music is nothing spectacular, not a lot of it is super memorable whether it’s the background music to a town or the combat music but it serves its purpose although it feels like the game is very very quiet on the music front a lot of the times when traveling, or gathering resources and so on. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is subjective, I’m sure a lot of people enjoy zone music while doing things and a lot of people also enjoy just the ambient sounds of the environment over looped music.
The voice work for the game is decent and it’s always a pleasant thing to hear voiced lines in MMOs through dialogue or even ingame moments. The greatest audio work in New World is definitely in the sound effects of your abilities, the gathering of resources and just the general combat noise with enemy telegraphs or mechanics and so on. The audio helps with giving me a tactile feel which is definitely there in New World, for example how weighted a war hammer feels or how I can feel one of my skills or attacks missing my target. We’ll talk more about the combat feel later in the video but thought I’d mention the importance of the sound design in the game.
Back to the topic of overland, the solo instances or Soul Trials during the main questline can make you actually use your potions or food or even do a quick respec if you want to change weapons and stats. In some ways, the questing and overland content nudge the player towards checking out the combat system beyond the six skills you can slot from your weapons which in my opinion is a good thing because you want to provide some sort of transition from getting into the game to learning the game.
The creation of this transitional bridge I think is a bit more important in New World especially when basically most of the game is centered around the PvPvE open world concept. And this is all tied up together by almost everything you encounter in the game. Realizing that certain things or features require higher levels, leveling through questing, learning the trades through questing in some cases, flagging for PvP for that extra 5% exp gain and the insane amount of harvesting and gathering.
Lore and Exploration Are Horrible
All of this almost neatly presented the New World experience to me and I kinda got this gist of it in a few hours. I now want talk about a chunk of the overland content, in particular the main and side questing when combined with the exploration are probably some of the worst experiences I’ve ever had playing a game.
The tedious doubling or tripling back between a side quest and the same area where the questgiver could have given you two or three tasks at once rather than just one task three times in a row is boring and tedious. While a lot of the side quests tend to be in the direction of the main quest, it feels like I’m driving on a road trip by myself and I’m falling asleep at the wheel when doing these quests. I can only count two side quests that I’ve done that truly was interesting to me and one of them had to do with stag anal glands and the other to do with a cursed bunny but beyond that I just did not like any of the quests and the lore.
And just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I asked my girlfriend to try out a quest in New World:
And maybe that lack of enjoyment has to do with how the lore is just not great, I tried really hard to get into the story and the characters of the main questline but I don’t think New World’s stories will ever win like an award for storytelling or writing to be honest with you because I just couldn’t and I ended up not caring.
The lore feels a bit simplistic and I think New World definitely had the challenge of not only being a new MMO but also having a completely new universe to worldbuild that fit both the aesthetics and gameplay. In this case, maybe like Lost Ark where the story isn’t that great either apart from boobas the delivery of Lost Ark’s story through a nice mix of cutscenes, gameplay and cinematic fighting moments could have saved New World’s story. And this is like the polar opposite of The Elder Scrolls Online where the lore can be amazing but the delivery of it is not that great or engaging through the actual gameplay.
But definitely what killed a lot of the overland for me was the absolutely tedious exploration and walking you have to do in New World. I am not exaggerating when I say most of my gameplay for about 40 hours was just walking by foot in New World, even with a Hatchet equipped it felt again like I was falling asleep at the wheel. My character walked so much in New World that if I were to walk as much as her in real life, I’m pretty sure I’d be the most healthy fitness YouTuber ever.
And during my livestreams a lot of people came by and told me I should buy the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC for a few reasons: first, I would have access to the mount system which would make the overland probably more enjoyable, second you can’t get to the new level cap of 65 and gearscore of 700 until you have the DLC and third, I would just enjoy the game more with the new zone, the new Flail and Shield, the Artifacts and so on. But I had a couple issues with these recommendations because first what sane person looked at New World’s size and fast travel placements during development and was like, yeah you know what Greg I don’t think the players will ever need mounts and it’s absolutely wild to me someone thought that and now 2 years after the launch of New World the game finally has mounts and it’s behind a paywall?
Pay to Enjoy? (Monetization)
So this of course leads to the monetization in New World which to me is not as abhorrent or predatory as some other liveservice games I’ve played. I think there’s definitely a sus thing or two about how there may not be ingame alternatives to what’s offered on the cash shop like weapon mastery experience boosters. But I think the biggest offender for me as a new player is the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC which sits at $30, ¾ of the cost of the actual game by the way which effectively locks the mount system until you pay up. It’s a little bewildering to me that a very expected system like mounts is behind an additional paywall when first, it could have been used as a way to procure more returning players and new players to say hey basegame New World now has mounts, try em out.
And second, just because of the nature of the liveservice monetization, I have no doubt the mount system or even the raised levelcap will probably become free at a future time anyway to fulfill the previous point which is somewhat messed up for the people who bought it and I just hate it when other games do the same exact thing where they lock features that should be available to all players and then make it free or more readily available some time down the line after making the max amount of revenue off of it. I didn’t like it with jewelry crafting in ESO and I don’t like it in New World either.
At a certain point I was checking out the DLC and there was a funny bundle offered on the New World website but unlike most bundles where if you buy two things separately for a total of $70 but can get them for like $5 less if bought together, the New World bundle just stayed at $70 which would be the same amount I pay excluding tax anyway if I bought these separately so what is the point of this bundle, Amazon?
Obviously, there’s a greater context here as to why the Rise of the Angry Earth DLC turned out the way it did, such as how the development of New World past the Brimstone Sands update has been provided sort of free for players who just bought it one time. One could argue that since New World offers no subscription based features or has no subscription model, the $30 is something acceptable to be paid to the company after 2 years of not charging anything. And I get that context and it’s definitely not as ludicrously expensive as other games charging for DLCs, housing and expansions either but I just think there is a great danger in liveservice content transactions stacking up to where not only is there already a time or product barrier for a MMO with your potential community but financial barriers as well and things like Destiny 2 is a great example of the financial cost of content entry which can definitely put off a lot of new and returning players from playing the game.
A big reason as to why I didn’t want to get the DLC is because I was still progressing and I’m a firm believer of not buying more things for a game that I’m not certain I’m enjoying or will enjoy enough to play a lot to essentially fulfill that monetary cost, I just didn’t want to be the guy who buys the DLC while initially hyped or intrigued and then just sort of not play and go play something else after a certain point. And when people were telling me how much better the DLC was in terms of quality of life or whatever, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how New World should have launched if the effect was that great in improving the enjoyment of the game while at the same time I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps the best time to play New World would have been at launch strangely enough.
But man it was definitely hard to not buy into it because there’s a lot of subtle and obvious pressure in the game itself for you to get this DLC. As a new player, seeing so many people on their mounts zoom past me doing the same quests but at a faster pace or not getting hit by the aggro’d mobs on their mounts was a big thing.
Seeing most people have Level 65 next to their nameplates, realizing endgame PvP and PvE effectiveness come in part from Artifacts, realizing if you’re grinding after level 60 anyway you might as well get the EXP to reach level 65, the new weapon that you can peek at in your menu and all these little things add up in pushing you to buy the DLC and in fact, the friend I was playing and questing with actually bought the DLC only to do what I feared I was gonna do – days after buying the DLC he dropped the game because it wasn’t holding enough interest even after buying the DLC. But apart from this DLC and the weapon xp boosters, I didn’t really notice anything too egregious in terms of the monetization model for New World so take that as you will.
The Systems and the Grind
At this point, you guys are wondering about how bad the grind might be in New World and I will say that just like any other MMO, you should expect to sink in some time before getting a feel and enjoyment for New World, I’d say at least 30 to 40 hours into New World to start realizing, understanding and enjoying what it is is a fair assessment. The grind for trade skills, the weapon mastery and the legendary gear pieces one could craft certainly look daunting and time consuming and it can be absolutely daunting in terms of time investment despite the ease of access to these base systems.
I think New World definitely places a lot of emphasis on the journey rather than the destination, it’s very clear for the questing as well that they sort of expected a player to do side quests as they did the main quest based on how underleveled you could end up around level 53 compared to the mobs you might be fighting if you skipped out on side quests. So if you’re okay with a game that actually offers that kind of ideal of casually or seasonally playing or farming steadily then New World might be the game for you. I think one could drive themselves mad like I did asking until all the way until the destination when the game is gonna get fun, when is the PvP gonna open up for me and so on. It’s just a game I think you have to play with good company or something you can tackle on as a journey for sure because the methods of grinding out weapon mastery or even levels with certain spots in the game can be soulwrenching or really boring due to the lulls and breaks in between the actual actions of gaining XP.
I would say for sure despite some of the grind the little things in New World are a huge positive for the MMO. And by little things I mean the housing, the straightforward crafting, the gathering and the minigames for things like fishing or playing music with different instruments. I really really enjoyed using the crafting systems and I found it again self-explanatory much like the rest of the game. I love the satisfaction of gathering and harvesting the resources in New World.
The sound of trees falling, the satisfying chops of the axe, the pickaxe making echoes if you’re in a valley or ravine, the level numbers going up as you clear the open world around you. It’s extremely satisfying and I think New World is a great game for people who like to craft. The player-run market system is also pretty easy to access and has a pretty solid UI for what it is, the housing is solid, the music minigame is addicting for me, the fishing feels much more active than other MMOs that have fishing, it’s all really good and I haven’t enjoyed these aspects in a MMO for a really long time and I appreciate New World for giving me said enjoyment again.
Combat and Content
On that note, the combat can also be pretty satisfying. As I was saying earlier in the video, the tactile feedback of the weapons, the abilities and how good they can feel such with my personal favorites being the Rapier, Blunderbuss, Hatchet and so on can be easily felt particularly with Weapons when you can try them out when comparing each other. The tri-stat system of Health, Mana and Stamina is also self-explanatory, the lack of classes may be off putting at first but the Weapons combined with the armor weight of Light, Medium or Armor and of course the combinations of both passives/abilities with which 2 weapon combo you end up with can dictate a lot. Once you start looking over the Weapons, the combat makes much more sense. I think the only thing I don’t like as far as combat is concerned for New World is the movement alongside the jumping whether that’s just the feel of it or the animation of it when your character has to cast abilities. On a side note, almost 100 hours later, with the art style it still feels like I’m playing Fortnite with worse jumps sometimes and I can’t shake that feeling for some reason.
I am happy to say that the content barriers to PvP and PvE seem much lower than some other MMOs. While the community is amiable at least on US East Maramma, I think the New World developers did a wonderful job of making the ability to do an activity whether you’re a solo player or not very easy which is great. I felt like I could hop into PvE via Expeditions or dungeons much faster than Elder Scrolls Online or World of Warcraft. The PvP with the exception of Company Wars seem pretty open to everybody regardless of their build. Depending on your server population perhaps the PvE queue system might be lacking but the actual act of getting into the ingame activities is I think a lot easier even for newer players.
Some people have asked me about PvE, I haven’t been able to do the Mutations yet, but I can already tell from doing the Expeditions that the PvE content is definitely not as bad as I’ve been led to believe by people who talked to me about New World, in fact it can definitely be quite enjoyable and I assume the endgame stuff is even more fun with certain instances.
PvP
I’ve done the overland PvP, I’ve checked out the Influence Races, I’ve flagged for PVP as I leveled, even killed this one guy who was hogging my XP grind spot and I think all of the PvP in the overland is what it is, it’s no system or gameplay I haven’t seen before in other multiplayer games like Planetside 2 or Dark Age of Camelot. I tried out Arenas as a new player and that’s when I found out that there’s no MMR or ELO or level matchmaking when I faced up against the opposing team that apparently had the #1 and #2 player on the Arena leaderboards so Arenas are something to be revisited if I continue New World. I think the most fun I’ve had in New World so far as a player interested in PvP not yet looking for a semi-permanent Company or community is definitely Outpost Rush. I think it’s a great concept that involves both the PvE and PvP aspects, kind of taking inspiration from Gambit in Destiny 2 and the map buffs or mechanics from DOTA 2. I loved Outpost Rush and I think it’s certainly a PvP activity I would love to undertake in addition to dueling. As a result of Outpost Rush, whether it’s because I’m level 60 when everyone else is level 65, I think I now have a newfound liking for ranged builds or even being a healer for both PvP and PvE and I think the latter role of being a healer is something I want to check out should I continue playing New World.
Performance
If you guys are curious about how well the game plays, I played New World on a rig with a 2080 TI and a i9-9900k and the performance issues at least for me were pretty mild with the exception of almost falling through the map sometimes. As expected FPS can drop pretty hard in heavily populated towns or during Outpost Rush or openworld PvP battles involving like 80 people. Other than that, I didn’t crash too often although there was some minor freezing when placing down house decorations, and of course for whatever reason there’s an invisible fountain in Windsward that can drown you if you stand next to a statue that I actually think they should keep in game. Lastly, I think I played during a weird period of time when the devs had to disable a Rapier and Blunderbuss skill to prevent glitches and crashes which despite the inconvenience I appreciate their seemingly fast response time on that front.
Conclusion
If I had to give New World a rating at this point in time, probably like a 7/10 maybe, it’s not terrible and it’s not the greatest but it’s something that can certainly scratch some itches for a lot of us who love MMORPGs. The crafting, the gathering, the combat, the minigames and a few things were really great for me. Everything else felt pretty bad or just kind of mid but I’m sure with time even some of those minus the exploration and lore may grow on me.