New World Preview – Why is Amazon Making an MMO?

NEW WORLD IN A NUTSHELL:

1. an open-world MMO with a world equal to about 40 square kilometers;
2. optional PvP flagging – no need to fight others;
3. complex, Souls-inspired combat system straight from action-RPGs;
4. fighting with melee weapons, firearms, and magic;
5. PvP battles of hundreds of players in sieges;
6. PvE: 50 players vs. 150 AI-controlled enemies;
7. conquering and managing territories;
8. customizable characters, houses and cities;
9. rich mechanics and progression system.

Online shopping, e-book readers, tablets, a voice assistant that prevents crimes and runs your smart home... Amazon brings many connotations, but gamedev isn't among them. Until now, that is – in May, we should get the first major game from Amazon Games, New World (their first game was The Grand Tour Game). As it turns out, the studio employs quite a few veterans of the industry, including people who have worked on games such as World of Warcraft, Destiny, Killer Instinct, or Baldur's Gate.

Amazon is interested in finding new ways to delight customers. They think first about customers. By making games you have a really close relationship with players, especially live games like MMO. I think it’s an opportunity for us to get feedback about the game, work with players to create something special.

David Verfaillie, head of player’s experience

There is a lot of passion at the studio, a lot of people have worked before on MMO, a lot of people are passionate about this.

Amazon in general really loves using technology to bring people together. MMO is one of the best game expression of that. The technology that allows that is something Amazon has worked on even earlier so it felt really natural to create MMO. Games are particularly well suited for social engagements.

Richard Lawrence, studio director

Interestingly, New World is not a game aimed at the average Amazon user, but rather the typical PCMR freak. It doesn't launch with any kind of Amazon Launcher, and it will be available on Steam, exclusively for PC, without plans for console versions with large fonts, etc. New World has ambitions to unite fans of MMO and action RPG, mixing a lively game world, human interactions, and a fairly complex combat system. And if one crucial element of the game will be improved, this could really work.

SERVER PROBLEMS NOT EXPECTED

One can assume that if there's one thing that will certainly work well in New World, it will be the server infrastructure; Amazon hosts servers of most of games we play anyways. Amazon solutions are used in games such as Fortnite, Clash Royale, or For Honor.

New World: Siege – the battle of Helm's Deep

The large scale battles are very unique about the game. We spent a lot of time tuning combat to work at that large scale. Adding the siege weaponry, adding the gameplay around it with the offense and defense. These are the pinnacle moments of the game and I hope you will find this part very exciting.

David Verfaillie, head of player’s experience

The highlight of the game's presentation was the siege of a fortress by fifty attacking players, and it admittedly looked kinda epic, save for a few minor blemishes. As defendants, our job was to make sure that the enemy doesn't capture all the checkpoints. Some of them were located in the center of the fort, and the huge gates could be destroyed. Depending on the chosen weapons and specialization, some players fought in the field, engaged in melee combat, while others fired at enemies with bows and muskets.

It was really possible to feel the heat of battle when the powerful engines flung fire projectiles, while inside the fort, huge horns heralded the battle, providing the defenders with a temporary buff; it was also possible to pour hot tar on attackers. There was, of course, some chaos, and the movement of the most distant players looked pretty funky, but the fight was still lots of fun. We were able to defend the fort – by the skin of our teeth, because the attackers were slowly starting to overrun us when time ran out.

What looks even more interesting are the so-called invasions, i.e. battles against three times more numerous forces controlled by AI. One of the devs compared them to the battle of Helm's Deep – there are hundreds of soldiers, including distinctive, bigger beasts. Here, however, I had to take their word for it, because the invasions weren't ready yet. I didn't quite like what happened before the battles – from the very beginning of the game to reaching the tenth character level.

Amazon or FedEx?

The first moments of the game are not only the study of the basic rules and mechanics, but, more importantly, an introduction to the universe, characters, and events, and here, New World disappoints. We find ourselves on an unknown land and after a short hike, we encounter a mysterious guest, the Watcher, who gives us quests. The worst possible kind of them: quick, two-lines-of-description, that involve killing multiple opponents, looting three crates – and going back to claim the prize. All the quests were similar, the only difference being the distance we had to cover.

We tend to find some letters and scraps of documents along the way, but their short reading did not draw me into the game world at all, exacerbated by unvoiced NPCs. New World has undergone a significant transformation from a survival-oriented game to an MMORPG, and it's quite obvious that the quests were one of the last things implemented. Even though it's an MMO, and so nobody expects a Bloody-Baron type of story, the game could still use some more fleshed-out quests, especially at the beginning, where everyone takes their time anyway.

GreedFall, but with players instead of a story

New World 's universe turns out quite interesting, which, oddly enough, I learned from the developers' presentation, not from the gameplay itself. The game world immediately reminded me of GreedFall, only in vivid, bright colors, and without such an emphasis on the plot. In both games we find ourselves on an island modeled after early, colonized America, where individual guilds fight not only with each other, but also with the natives and the magical forces of nature. New World takes us to the world of Aethernum, the richness of which is an unusual substance Azoth – the source of immortality, according to many.

However, a great reward requires a great sacrifice. The island is haunted by the dark forces of the Corruption – which possessed many previous settlers, turning them into something resembling a zombie. Other hazards include the mysterious Ancients, or magical creatures defending their habitat, from the so called Angry Earth. All this creates a fairly diverse set of opponents, from ordinary "farmers" and pirate skeletons, to strange animals overgrown with bark and leaves, to more powerful bosses.

The New World is usually very pretty, and traversing it is a pleasure. Our character can climb using clever jumps, so there are few artificial barriers. The landscape gradually changed from the ship graveyard to ghost farms to forests, grasslands, forts, and entire cities. There is no shortage small details and creative places. Moreover, almost any tree can be cut down, any boulder or bush turned into raw materials, so the landscape can completely change. In any case, New World has a world that's begging for a good narrative, at least at the beginning.

To be a governor

Over time, MMOs begin to live their lives and change according to the decisions of the players. New World seems to have thought about all the aspects of this genre. The pacifists will be able to engage farming and trading, without entering PvP-fights. The wealthiest and most powerful of them will run cities and entire lands, set taxes, until someone calls them into open war to take over the territory. Good city management unlocks more NPCs, which means more quests in PvE mode. In the city, you will be able to buy a house and personalize it with different decorations. We can do some of the tasks alone, but many will require joint actions in a group.

All our actions will be complemented by an extensive progression system. In addition to character level, we will also level-up individual weapons with separate ability trees, crafting, gathering, ranks for specific factions and each of the twelve territories available from the beginning. Peaceful existence in the New World world will be mostly disrupted by the Corrupted invasions and ongoing (presumably often) wars between players. Whether we stand for power ourselves, join a group, or wait for the next ruler and his taxes – is up to us.

Action-RPG combat

In any case, we will not be able to avoid combat altogether – the mechanics of it were especially carefully considered. Therefore, it isn't surprising that the creators devoted a lot of time of the presentation to explain their combat system. The goal was to bring the smoothness known from action-RPGs and replace the simple "click to attack" with it. They emphasized that after reaching a certain level, you really need to invest some time into learning to fight, and skill will be more important than the level – of course, within reasonable limits. A talented player with a slightly lower level will be able to beat someone a few levels higher, which is unthinkable in many other MMO's.

Each type of weapon will require a completely different approach. Classic TPP combined with vital blocks and evasions makes it important to position correctly with regard to the opponent, and requires good timing to deliver successful attacks and defend from them. I had a chance to put the system through the paces, and indeed, using a light sword and a heavy war hammer requires a completely different approach, and you can really feel like you were playing some kind of single-player RPG focused on combat. Of course, this isn't Souls-like difficulty, but combat in general can be considered one of the main and most absorbing elements of the game.

In New World, there is no division into classes, so our role and capabilities in battle depend only on the weapons and equipment we will wear. The equally complex system of magic is a separate issue, which, unfortunately, we have not seen in action, but allegedly there will be two main roles here: healer, and an offensive mage.

Alexa – level me up

No. New World is not quite this level of novelty. The famous voice assistant will not do practical actions for us, as was the case in Destiny 2 – at least for now. In this regard, the game from Amazon Games will be... rather conservative.The creators focused on the very specifics, the essence, the meat and potatoes of the MMO genre, rather than on shiny decorations. I'll admit that I was hoping for a special role of a famous actor from Amazon Prime Video as an important NPC, like Peter Dinklage in the first Destiny, but that doesn't happen.

I think that what this game's missing is a strong accent that could make it more appealing to regular players, interested in all kinds of games, rather than just MMO. New World promises to be a very interesting position for the largest fans of the MMO genre – those who like collect raw materials and want to create a second, virtual world. Completely different approach to combat can be a nice change, but it may also be too big a change for purists. But will regular fans of RPG find their way to the game? I don't know yet, but I'll check it out.

"Alexa – book me a place in the fort on the island of Aeternum! Oh, and what will the weather be like there in May?”