New World: Aeternum

Release Date: October 15, 2024

Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC

Amazon Games’ New World has had an interesting few years. Billed as an MMORPG and launched in 2021 on PC, it’s now being repackaged and re-released as New World: Aeternum for a console drop. Weirdly, Amazon is also shifting the marketing approach for New World: Aeternum: it has all of the base game material, the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, and a slew of new content—and the team is calling it an RPG, not an MMO, even though it’s still an MMO. Yes, I am also confused.

Aeternum clearly wants to court new players while also attempting to not alienate the exist fan base, but I’m not sure how well this will work out. My hands-on was fairly brief, but showed off the new story content and new characters. At first, the RPG elements were obvious—there’s a cool story at play here, your build can be varied, your approach diverse, but then after getting through the on-boarding process, it hard-pivots back to an MMO. And a kind of boring one at that.

If you already play New World, you won’t be annoyed by the tedious crafting and leveling that comes standard with an MMO. But if you haven’t (and that’s clearly who Amazon is trying to court here), why the hell would you sign up for an RPG just to play this? If the full game launch is more fleshed out in terms of solo gameplay that isn’t as tedious, New World: Aeternum could be a solid RPG. We’ll have to wait and see. — Alyssa