Through the madness of our Summer Game Fest Play Days experience, we took a moment to play the upcoming expansion (and something of a re-imagining) for New World, entitled New World: Aeternum. While initially a full MMORPG, New World: Aeternum—at least as far as our demo—seemed aimed a bit more to be an open world RPG. As we dove in, our first choice was a character archetype. We chose the musketeer in a hopes for skill with long-distance sharpshooting. Each character archetype appeared to have the ability to wield a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. The character creator had a dizzying level of granularity to it, everything from gender, facial scars, skin tone and hairstyle.
From there, we were thrown straight into the story. Our character traveled towards the game’s famed island Aeternum aboard a ship. We were thrown in right at the second that some calamity transpired—storm, fire or attack was not entirely clear—and the crew seemingly was transformed into a glowing red form of zombie the game franchise refers to as “The Corrupted.” One big crash later, our plucky musketeer awakened marooned on the isle of Aeternum, without weaponry or provisions. A short travel into the jungle later, and we had a showdown with a supremely “corrupted” conquistador. A disembodied voice promised the character immense power and mere seconds later we were in combat with him. Although initially appearing to win the battle, the unseen power rejuvenated the foe and we were instantly slain.
Thus, this is the core of the first piece of the story of the game. Our voiceless custom character awakening yet again on a totally different beach meeting inhabitants of something of a weigh station/intro village that explained that nobody that dies on Aeternum seem to stay dead. They either return as “The Corrupted” or they just keeping getting reincarnated. A useful explanation of the long peered around trope in video games of how you can just keep playing the same reality over and over again until you get it right. You’re given menial tasks, like gathering flint for making a crude knife, killing a boar for food (which are on Aeternum apparently plentiful and crazy easy to murder) and searching nearby wreckage of ships drawn into the island’s clutches. The reason people are reanimated is unknown to the island inhabitants and before you know it, you’re sent out to fight The Corrupted scattered amidst the shallow waters surrounding the beach.
Like any massive (MMO or otherwise) RPG, the game feels gigantic in scale. Combat was reasonable, and timing melee attacks and aiming a long-range weapon were not difficult feats to master. This was our biggest issue with our section of the demo. This portion of the experience just felt ineffectually easy. Finding resources was easy, dispatching evil red-glow-zombie-folk, even easier. There never seemed to be any real challenge or threat to facing down with these evil, endless denizens. Meeting real-world pirate legend Grace O’Malley led to even more shipwreck exploration and slaughtering of The Corrupted, but still, clearing them out proved easy in our demo. Admittedly, this is just the first little bit a very, very big game, so odds are the milquetoast adversaries ramp up in difficulty as the game progresses. We some evidence of the other demo players cruising by in the same beach we were in, but their missions seemed to exist separate from our own character’s agenda.
New World: Aeternum will be releasing (and functioning in crossplay) on Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 5 and PC on October 15th. This very morning, the game’s creators have announced a Confidential Console Closed Beta that players can sign up for a chance to participate in giving them an early chance between 7/11 and 7/17 to experience new weapons, unseen regions and even experience end-game content.