Amazon has gone above and beyond any expectations that I have had about New World, their new MMO game set to release on August 31st. I was able to get into the closed beta and there simply aren’t enough great things that I can say about this game. New World is a majestically beautiful game that provides players with multiple aspects of a survival / MMO genre to have enjoyed in this open-world game. I am very happy to say that I personally cannot wait for the game to go live so that I can go all out with this game.
I have put in over 17 hours of game time into the Beta and am level 20. I have dabbled in many aspects of the game from gathering resources, to fighting monsters and animals. I have joined a guild and participated in PVP. I have even worked on my skills and even found time to fish in all the chaos. So, I have a great understanding of what the game is and where it may be heading when it goes live in less than one month.
The game starts off where you see the interaction between a captain and a mysterious stranger in a tavern. The mysterious stranger tells this the captain of an island with riches and treasure but also danger. The captain takes his leave and next he is on a ship that is sailing for this island. Then the game begins with your character creation. This would be my first issue of the game. I was looking for more of a personalized character creation like that of Sword of Legends Online, it is not that advanced. It does, however, give you more options than World of Warcraft, but it is a little mundane for me. Pick a hairstyle, hair color, face, eye color, some sort of marking, maybe a tattoo. But that is about it as you can’t move tattoos around, widen the nose or bring in the cheeks, stretch your person out, or make them plump. I personally would like to see more options, and maybe down the line, they will make this more available.
Once you make landfall, you learn the movement of your character and how to attack, dodge, and even block oncoming attacks. You make it out of the shipwreck area and up the hill and this was my first time ever seeing how gorgeous this game truly is. The first time you see the trees and the pollen in the air, the sun peeking through the clouds and lighting the shrubbery below is absolutely breathtaking. The scenery gave me the feeling of watching the movie Avatar for the very first time, where everything was bright and colorful. At this very moment, I took my first of many screenshots of this wonderland.
The top of the screen directs you on where to go just like that of a compass. You will get your first quest and off you go. With each quest, you get experience to level up. You may get an item or even a crate. Inside the crate can be a green item to increase stats, or you can even get resources to help with your other skills.
You have to gather resources to build things to gather other resources. For example, while you start fighting the withered near the wrecked ships, you see flintstones on the ground. Pick them up. In fact, here is a pro-tip, if you see anything that you can pick up, I would do it. Just know that you only have so much weight you can carry on you, so watch your bag. But once you have the flint, then you can see about making a skinning knife. So, when you kill a boar you can skin it to gather hide. Now that you have hide you can use the hide at the tannery to make leather. Now that you have leather you can use it to make either a weapon or clothing or something else.
Each resource provides a step into doing something else, just like a lot of other MMO’s, but for me, this was a lot more fun. I was in a forest to kill wolves. While I was there, I was skinning wolves, cutting down trees, and gathering herbs, hemp, and mushrooms. So, I was not just running to one area and killing wolves then running to another area to gather wood. I was able to multitask the whole time and it gave me the feel of the way they would have done it during this time frame.
The combat system is also very well thought out. You can do sword and shield, rapier, spear, two-handed hammer, and even a battle ax. Then for range, you can do musket, bow and arrow, mage staff and I even ran across some ice gauntlets. You can level any of them up and use them. You do not have to be in a specific class to use the weapons as it lets you try and master any of them you like. I personally enjoy the Rapier and the Bow and Arrow gameplay. Shoot them with a bow to draw them in and parry and kill with the Rapier. I use a lot of Dexterity and Constitution to do great damage and have more life.
The look of the armor is spot on in this game. You can find a conquistador plate helm and a swashbuckling pirate tunic as if you pulled it straight out of the history books. Each item can give you better stats to help with your damage and survivability. Some even give you special traits like Leech, so a portion of your damage will heal you as well. I was able to find a few crafting mods while I was out and about gathering resources from crates that increases my ability to get a specific trait on my weapon. I made an Iron Rapier and I added a mod to give me a +8 to dexterity. It felt good to make something that I could get better use out of.
Once you reach level 10 and have all the beginning quests out of the way then you unlock factions. There are 3 factions in the game you get to choose from to help earn rewards and take over the island in player-vs-player or player-vs-everything quests. They are the Marauders, Syndicate, and the Covenant. Marauders are a ‘ruthless military force’ who seek to use their strength to obtain freedom. If you’re looking to flex your muscles and strongarm your way to the top. The Covenant is a ‘fanatical order’ on a mission to cleanse the land of impurities and heretics and restore justice. The Syndicate is a ‘secretive organization of boundless guile and intellect’.
As you can see, there is so much to do, see and get into that there is always something to keep you entertained. And I haven’t even mentioned the housing creation yet. I guess you will have to play the game to see that part. Amazon’s New World is being released on August 31st, 2021, for PC and you can pre-order the game now through Steam and Amazon. The Standard version costs $39.99 while the Deluxe version is $49.99. I truly hope this game keeps going in the right direction and I am so excited to tag along with it on the journey. I can’t wait to see a lot of people I have played within the game during beta when New World finally goes live.
This preview was written based on a closed beta code of New World for PC provided by Amazon Games.
