New World: Aeternum

Written by Eric Hauter on 10/21/2024 for PS5  

After playing through the first 20-30 levels of New World: Aeternum on pre-release press servers and during various betas, I finally dug into the full game on the release date with the rest of the general audience. So, here I am wondering how many hours one must put into an MMORPG before writing a review. 50? 100? 1000? As someone who does their darndest to roll credits on a game before putting fingers to keyboard on a review, I’m finding it tough to know when to determine when I’ve seen enough of New World: Aeternum to render a verdict. MMOs are built to distract the player, pulling them in all directions with a bazillion fun things to do. It’s been difficult to focus up.

But focus, I have, pushing through many mainline story quests and an equal number of side quests. I’ve spent time exploring the beautiful world, grinding out crafting skills, bought and decorated a house, and run several instances. I even ventured into a PVP area, even though that is far from my jam. Bottom line – if I don’t stop now, I’m never gonna stop. New World: Aeternum is very, very entertaining.

You may have seen some recent articles decrying the fact that Amazon has been pushing Aeternum as an “action RPG” as opposed to an update of it’s existing MMO. There is some value in that take – this is not a new game - but I do think that it sells short the work that has been done on New World that makes it more approachable to new players. The new cut scenes are very engaging, the story is simple, fun, and easy to parse in a way that had me actually a) knowing what was going on and b) caring about what happened next. And the world itself has been retooled to make things more manageable to players that might not have 1000 hours to drop on a game. In its new form, you can drop into New World, have some fun, and drop back out.

But make no mistake, this is still very much an MMORPG. Though the action can now be handled with a controller in a much more dynamic way, you are still firing off skills on a cooldown and running quests all over a giant continent. And there are thousands of people doing it right along with you.

For folks new to the game, New World washes players up onto the shores of a fictional new continent in an alternate version of the 17^th century (or maybe the 18^th century; let’s not quibble over it). Along with muskets and swords, magic fully exists in this world in a very matter-of-fact way, along with ghosts, ghouls, and other monstrosities. The player is immediately plunged into a questline that defines them as the savior of the new civilization, putting them smack-dab in the middle of a lot of political squabbling and territorial gamesmanship against the backdrop of a supernatural invasion.

Of course, a lot of this takes place in the form of standard MMO questing; go over here, kill 10 of these dudes, and bring back their swords. But this is couched in an engaging story that propels the player steadily outward, slowly unlocking new distractions and mechanics. I was particularly taken with the crafting system, which took up approximately 1/3 of my time in New World. Crafting materials are pretty much everywhere in the game, and it takes quite a lot of stuff to over-encumber your character, which encourages my hoarding instincts. The game also opens a storage unit – and then a house - pretty early on, for those like me that can’t stand to let anything go. The nice thing about the crafting and gathering system in New World is that it is a “learn by doing” system, allowing players to level up and unlock new recipes and skills just by participating in the activity.

For example, I immediately started piling up hides and meat while clearing boars and wolves in early hours of the game. By the time I actually got around to crafting hours later, I had huge stacks of both materials. The game allows you to craft enormous amounts of stuff at once, which turbo rockets you through a ton of crafting levels in a very satisfying way, simultaneously unlocking new recipes.

Tanning my hides, for example, pushed me up to something like level 25 leatherworking, which then in turn opened a few new recipes for me to pursue. The new recipes just pop into the menu, and if you have the right ingredients, you can just keep right on crafting. It is a fun and satisfying system, which also gives a small jolt of general XP at the same time, which helps make it feel like it is contributing to your overall character development.

I should also mention that I was quickly able to craft much better gear than the stuff that I was picking up as quest rewards; once you get a feel for the system, you can start pushing out some seriously over-powered stuff both for yourself and to sell on the game’s easy-to-navigate in-game marketplace. I was a little shocked once the game was live at how much of my homemade stuff people were actually willing to buy, which quickly became a regular source of revenue for me.

Aeternum has streamlined New World’s more open-ended character development as well, allowing players to select an “Archetype” during character creation. Though you can still equip and advance your skills with any weapons or armor you please, the game does feed you archetype-appropriate gear during the early hours, which pretty much steers you in the right direction. Out of the seven archetypes (Soldier, Swordbearer, Ranger, Musketeer, Mystic, Occultist, and Destroyer), I chose to be a Mystic, feeling that the class’s healing skills would come in handy during early levelling.

It turns out that this was a wise choice. Though I sometimes found myself in a bit of a tight squeeze, I still haven’t died during my time in-game. The Mystic can attack quite nicely from a distance, and my natural inclination to power level myself above any content I’m currently pursuing ensured that I was laying waste to most enemies before they ever reached me. And for stronger boss types, I was able to kite them quite nicely.

Which leads me to one major point. Though the New World: Aeternum website describes the game as an “action RPG”, fans of Diablo-likes and Souls games should come in with their eyes wide open. Though a lot of work has gone into streamlining the experience for solo players, this is still very much an MMO. You are definitely min/maxing your gear here, and though you have a dodge button, you will not be getting into Black Myth: Wukong style boss battles. Combat is very much in line with what you would expect from an MMO, with enemies making a beeline straight towards your character, and you firing off a series of skills that are on a cooldown timer in a war of attrition. Battles are a matter of damage/heal if needed/see who falls down first/rinse/repeat/watch the numbers go up. If you aren’t into that sort of combat loop, you will not find what you are looking for with New World: Aeternum.

It is also important to note that while New World: Aeternum is specially tuned for solo players, all of the MMORPG stuff is still in the game. You can still group up (tank, heal, DPS is still the order of the day), run instances, raid, and all the other good social stuff you want to do. It’s just that, in this new version, you can either do that content by yourself if you want, or skip it without repercussion. The game never forces you into a corner where you must find friends or be stopped cold.

I played New World: Aeternum on a PS5 and found that the game worked quite nicely with the DualSense controller. Yes, there is some “use the left stick for your mouse” menu stuff in here, but Amazon Games seems to have found the perfect speed for the cursor; I never felt like it was moving too slow, nor did it zip across the screen like lightning. The rest of the controls are laid out nicely, and I never had any trouble accomplishing what I set out to do. Porting a PC game to a controller is never easy; the developers have done an admirable job here. Combat is as smooth as it could possibly be (the limited number of skills you can equip at a time is a huge help), and the interaction prompts work great to keep the player moving in the right direction. Hey, you have some points to level up. Hey, you advanced your weapon. Hey, you sold some stuff. This is a game that likes to keep you informed. 

One other major point that deserves some praise – for the most part, I found the New World community to be friendly and open to newcomers. There was a lot of excitement in the global chat when the console players joined the fray, and though there was a bit of the usual PC vs console nonsense floating around, it wasn’t overly abrasive. Players seemed to be encouraging to newcomers, and happy that their game of choice was getting a shot in the arm.

I did find that, while the experience is welcoming overall, there are still some pieces that could use some fine tuning. For example, leveling up your crafting allows you to filter certain materials on your map, but I’ll be damned if I could figure out how to do it. I also had a heck of a time figuring out how to claim my regional faction prizes (hover over the prize, click X. Duh.) However, some of these issues can be resolved with a quick shout into the void of global chat.  It should also be noted that this game has been floating around for several years; there are a ton of online maps and guides that are still (mostly) relevant.

So no, New World: Aeternum isn’t a brand-new game set in the world of the pre-existing MMO. It is instead a rework of that game, which grinds down a lot of the sharp edges that had caused players to peel off. This is a fresh take on an existing title, one that comes with a lot of history and documentation, and a fairly welcoming community. If you enjoy MMOs, or you liked New World in the past, I can’t think of any reason not to check this out. It’s not too often a AAA MMORPG pops up on console. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, and the deeper I go, the more I like it. I can’t think of a better recommendation than that.