PC Gamer - UK 2020-04)

Should the sky be
that colour?

PREVIEW

NewWorld

RELEASE

May

DEVELOPER

Amazon Game Studios

PUBLISHER

In-house

LINK

newworld.com

NEED TO KNOW

NewWorld’s actioncombatsystemis one

of the few exceptions. Amazon is

committed to making you physically

connect swords and arrows with your

targets – no clicking once and watching ‘X

hits Y’ scroll by in the chat window.

It’s impressive that hit-detection works

as well as it seems to in 100-player

battles. A few times an arrow or

bullet whizzed by me because the

shot threaded a gap in whatever

animation I was in the middle of. If

one of my shots failed to connect, I had to

assume the same thing happened, even if

it appeared to hit its mark from my

far-away perch on a fort’s battlements.

(And I didn’t expect to hit much at that

range, given that my arrows had to arc

perfectly into squirrelly players.)

In melee range, I dodge-rolled around,

blocked, chained simple light and heavy

combos, and threw out special moves

which have long cooldowns. It’s not as

complex or fun as Mordhau, with its

first-person view, feints and parries, but it

requires a smattering of the same skills.

Even though there are stats and levels and

equipment tiers, one tester could

apparently walk around naked – in the

game, not the office – killing anyone who

challenged him purely through skill.

How a 100-player PvP battle comes

about takes some explaining. The short of

it is that players can form companies and

take over territories on New World’s

island. If another company thinks they

ought to be in charge, they can declare

war, and a battle will take place at a

real-world time set by the defenders. Each

company can recruit up to 50 players to

fight in the battle – they don’t all have to

be company members – and then the

siege commences.

Why would you fight for a company

you’re not a member of? Maybe you’ve

got nothing to lose and it would be fun. But

maybe one of the companies promises

lower taxes in the territory, or public

projects like improved crafting stations,

and you already bought a house in the

local settlement and don’t feel like moving.

WORLD WARRIOR

If it sounds awfully complex, New World

isn’t throwing out MMO conventions. After

washing up on the island of Aeternum, an

NPC ran me through the standard MMO

rites: kill some ghouls to prove I can

fight, butcher the local wildlife to pick

up the basics of crafting, learn how to

loot a chest. It’s a yawn, but teaches

what it needs to teach. You can focus

on fighting AI enemies – there’s one big

boss battle ready for launch, and hordes

of AI enemies can invade forts, too – and

you don’t have to take part in politics or

PvP if you don’t want to.

‘Restraint’ seems to be the key word

here. New World’s territory capture is

interesting, but it isn’t promising

revolutionary player agency or ditching

theme park attractions. You can’t plop

houses anywhere or design your own fort,

because according to the devs those

features didn’t make it more fun in testing

• mostly, they’re keeping it simple.
  ‘Let’s not go too wild’ doesn’t lend itself
  to catchy marketing slogans, but ‘there’s a
  new MMO on Steam, it’s £35, the
  interface is intuitive, and you won’t die of
  thirst after ten minutes’ might be the right
  hook for the times. Now let’s see if
  Amazon’s cloud infrastructure can be
  used to launch an MMO without day one
  connection issues – that would be a feat.
  Tyler Wilde

E

arlier versions of Amazon’s MMO

nagged players with thirst and hunger,

but now a sip of water just replenishes a

little health. Not much is precious to this

team: if it isn’t working it gets cut, or revised. The

survival systems didn’t make it, but you can still

camp and cook up buffs.

An MMO worth attention for its

combat and PvP wars

NEW WORLD

PLAYERS CAN FORM

COMPANIES AND TAKE OVER

TERRITORIES ON THE ISLAND

PLAYED

IT