What's up Ladies & Gentlemen of the internet? Amazon's New World is currently in closed-beta with a strict NDA. Those with closed-beta access have been able to get a first look at the game, but for the rest of us, we've only had speculation. That is until now of course as a player in that closed-beta leaked over 2 hours of gameplay on pornhub. What that leaked footage gives us is a great window into where Amazon is going with New World. This is Radical Edward for Less Than Epic giving you my first take on the leaked footage so strap in and let's get started.
So first, what is the game? Amazon's New World is an MMORPG about settling an alternate colonial America. That is, you are a 17th centry settler moving to new and untouched lands filled with magic, wildlife and monsters. What you will be doing in the game is exactly what a settler would do, settle. From the leaked footage we see what looks to be a new player who is hunting, gathering, crafting and interracting with other real players. We don't get to see any actual building in the leaked footage so I will not be going over that in this video, but from what i've read at other sources the whole game is supposed to be a persistant player run sandbox MMORPG. Let your mind run wild with that one.
Crafting looks to be a very deep aspect of this game. From what I can see in the leaked footage I would call the crafting and item system Robust and Semi-Realistic. Items seem to take realistic amounts of components and are crafted much like they are in games like Skyrim or 7 Days to Die; you need foreges, tanning racks and other structures in order to craft items and item components. For instance, if you wanted to make something with leather you would need to make a tanning rack to make your leather first.
Gathering, while a core aspect of the game, doesn't look as complicated as the crafting system. If you've played rust, the forest or any other similar game then you will know how gathering works. For those who haven't played those games, you gather at nodes that either respawn randomly or on a timer at a fixed location. You only have to interract with the object to gather the components.
Character progression is an important aspect of any MMORPG, and from what I can see it will work a bit differently in New World than other MMO's, but not so different that it will feel foreign. There is your standard stat-based progression, but New World actually gives players the control to pick which stats they would like to spend their stat points in. This is very akin to older MMORPG's. However, stats alone don't tell the whole story. Everything beyond stats looks to be based on skill and resources. For instance, if you have the ability to create a bow, 50 arrows and aim them properly then you will do as much damage to enemies as arrows you hit.
Combat looks to be an action combat system, so there will be a certain degree of player skill involved, however, combat will also be influenced by what gear you can craft, find or get from other players. As I was mentioning in the last segment, there doesn't look to be any cap on what weapon or armor you can use, but the good part about having an action combat system is that your gear is only as good as you are at using it.
Is the environment generated or static? This is always a huge question in any sandbox game as it can directly coorelate to the replayability of the game. In the case of New World, so far as we can tell from the leaked closed beta footage, the world looks to be static. What that means is that every server will have the same base world geometry, but players would fill in that geometry with their own structures. Some may see this as a negative about the game, but other sandbox games with static environments like the forest still have massive replayability so I think it's too early to tell.
I am lumping Guilds, Item Storage and PVE Content into one section as there wasn't too much that the leak could tell us about these game aspects. First, guilds do seem to be a thing as at one point in the leaked footage you can see a shout in the player chat which was recruiting players to a "Company." This seems fairly standard for an MMO so I expect Companies to work pretty much the same as guilds in games like World of Warcraft. Item storage looks work the same as in games like 7 days to die or minecraft, you make a box and put stuff in the box. Beyond that the leak didn't really show anything beyond your player's personal inventory. PVE Content is where the leak really lacked any sort of hint. I imagine, given that the game is an MMORPG, there is some king of group content like dungeons or raids, however the leak showed nothing like that. It's entirely possible the game doesn't have any group content yet, but I can't imagine it would release without it.
Overall it's pretty clear that Amazon's New World is an amalgam of many types of games, but if I had to describe it simply, I would call it a Persistant Player-Run Sandbox MMORPG. The building & crafting elements that are very deep and seem to take notes from games like Elder Scrolls Online, Rust, The Forest and other similar games. The combat is an action combat system similar to games like Tera, but more focused on actual player skill than what gear you have. And finally, the game has a pretty neat setting, placing the player in the shoes of a settler settling a magical, brutal and beautiful New World.
Anyway that's gonna do it for this first look at Amazon's New World. If you would like even more info about New World i've left a few of my source links in the description and If you made it this far in the video i'd like to thank you for watching. We do many types of content on this channel but most of it revolves around video games. If you like that kind of content be sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel and hit the little bell icon so you get notified when our videos go live. Thanks for watching everyone and this is Radical Edward, signing out.
Sources:
- PH for the actual leak.
- Basic Game Info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqhdwK9gJyg
- Other general game info: https://www.pcgamer.com/hands-on-with-amazons-mmo-new-world-where-hundreds-of-players-war-over-a-supernatural-continent/