Set during the Age of Exploration, New World: Aeternum asks what would happen if – instead of the Americas – we stumbled upon a volatile fantasy realm where legends come to life. And where they never perish…
As an adventurer who takes to the high seas, you soon find yourself shipwrecked on its stormy shores, your destiny forever changed. While Aeternum boasts a stunning natural beauty and a bounty of precious resources streaked, there’s a growing corruption sweeping the land, drawing dark and unseen forces into a wider conflict as humans look to make their mark upon this untamed land.
New World: Aeternum is very much an action-oriented MMORPG. The game sports an active combat system similar to souslike RPGs thanks to an intuitive lock-on camera while rewarding well-time blocks and dodges – elements that will feel somewhat alien to fans of traditional MMOs.
These same fans may also baulk at New World’s streamlined character builds. Instead of choosing a class and gradually filling the screen with hotbars and icons, players can only slot a total of six abilities (split between their two equipped weapons) with branching skill trees add a satisfying amount of depth. Weapon pairings will ultimately dictate your role in combat, though New World does give the option to freely switch and experiment, allowing you to completely respec without too much admin involved.
The straightforward controls and condensed ability loadouts complement New World’s fresh console ports particularly well. Navigating chat windows and some of the more advanced menus can get a bit finicky on a gamepad yet it feels like the game was always designed with console players in mind, rather than being an afterthought.
Unlocking its doors to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S isn’t the only thing that’s new for New World: Aeternum. Since the game originally launched on PC there have been a glut of content drops, new features, and quality of life improvements. One of the most notable upgrades is a renewed focus on storytelling and worldbuilding through improved character interactions and cutscenes. It’s clear that Amazon Game Studios has poured a lot of love into the lore and presentation of its flagship MMO with fully-voiced NPCs and a living in-game codex that grows as you learn more about the realm of Aeternum and its denizens.
Archetypes are another new addition to New World: Aeternum that will help you slip into one of its many flexible playstyles. After all, while the solo levelling experience is relatively agnostic of the weapons you choose, group PvE activities such as Expeditions and Raids – as well as PvP – require players to choose a role whether that’s a thank, DPS, or healer.
However, it will be a while before you can fully immerse yourself in team play with much of this content unlocking when you hit the game’s original level cap of 60. Thankfully, it doesn’t take too long to reach this milestone. For my Mystic (New World’s de facto healer/support archetype) it took around 30 hours of mostly main story quests and Expeditions with limited uptake of side missions.
Aside from straight up duels, there are plenty of PvP options in New World including a recently introduced 3 versus 3 Arena and the more objective-based 40-player Outpost Rush. Then there’s the ongoing Faction War that permeates in the game’s persistent world. Soon after washing up on the shores of Aeternum, you can choose to ally with the Covenant, Syndicate, or Marauders, who are locked in a never ending conflict. Through careful planning and brute opportunism Companies (player-run guilds) can occupy the many settlements found spread across the map, first working collectively to gain influence and then throwing down in massive siege battles.
Away from combat and questing, New World offers a comprehensive crafting system that is split between gathering supplies and then processing these into materials, gear, or sellable goods. Choosing a certain archetype will give you a small boost in certain crafting skills though you’re truly free to pursue any at your own leisure, from refining ore and engineering muskets to fishing and building furniture for your home. Oh yes, there’s player housing.
Beyond its walled cities, townships, and makeshift settlements, Aeternum offers a diverse patchwork of biomes each teeming with life. Covered in forests and fauna, there’s an element of untouched natural beauty streaked with the occasional gash of red and a dense dark miasma to signal the presence of corruption. Each region has its own aesthetic and local tales, rewarding inquisitive players with little nuggets of lore and painting a more detailed picture of Aeternum’s mysterious past. These areas are well populated too, New World touting a bestiary of wild animals to hunt as well as a grimoire of exotic creatures from zombie pirates and mystic dryads to cosmic horrors from another dimension.