All images in this impressions article of New World: Aeternum are from my time with the pre-beta early access.
Over the weekend, I’ve had the chance to give Amazon Games’ survival MMORPG title ‘New World: Aeternum’ a spin on my Xbox Series X. Originally released on PC via Steam back in 2021, the Aeternum tagline seems to be part of a relaunch of sorts for Amazon’s first MMO, bringing the game to consoles as well as reworking various aspects of the original game. I can’t verify much of this off memory, as the last time I had touched or seen hair of New World was nearly three years ago. And as for what I’ve gotten to play now, I only got to get to level 15 before I was unceremoniously booted off the server for Aeternum’s true Open Beta launch this week (starting on the 13th!).
I’ll be covering my first couple of hours with New World: Aeternum, including the tutorial systems all the way to the main questline. Now if you’re looking for an immediate pull into this impressions article, wait til you see what I’ve to say about the combat—it’s quite fun!
New World: Aeternum starts off the players on a ship charted for the “New World”, a place that apparently holds untold treasures and, for the expedition leader in particular, power beyond his wildest dreams. What should’ve been an expedition for the ages goes awry, and soon you find yourself shipwreck on the shores of Aeternum. It is a gorgeous place, teeming with lush colours and an abundant source of wildlife. But a lot of your former comrades have found themselves corrupted by a force unknown—and said force has also found itself wedged somewhere inside you after a bout with your now fallen leader.
The game slaps you with the fact right away, but Aeternum is basically hell. A pretty one at that, but hell nonetheless. For this bout into the New World, I started with the Musketeer class, a rapier and musket-focused build that I found a lot of flexibility with as I headed in with the intentions to solo most of the content. Though I had hoped to play with other early access players, unfortunately I could count them all on one hand. I almost felt like I was trapped in paradise! Sadly, I was unable to test the player-controlled faction systems as a result.
But I digress, New World: Aeternum’s combat is all real-time. Your swings and hits are dependent on making contact with the target (or at least close enough) and same goes for the baddies that want your head. The rapier has a simple four hit basic attack that you can follow up with a heavy by holding the right trigger down. You can of course, unlock skills that give you additional options for combat, including stunning enemies with a flurry of swipes or a dash-in attack that can come in a pinch when surrounded. The same goes for the musket: you have unlimited ammo, headshots can give potential bonuses, and skills can enhance those shots to stun more frequently.
Stunning your opponents is fairly important. Sure, you could block attacks or dodge out of the way, but if you want damage uptime, you’ll ideally want to time your skill and heavy attack uses to knock enemies off balance before they attack. This does leave you vulnerable to exchanges, but if you can tank the damage, you can take down foes faster. The musket also helps you not only get some extra damage before the baddies can pathfind to you but can help you single out specific targets in fields full of enemies. Much better than Leeroying through a mob-infested field trying to complete a simple quest.
If Aeternum does one thing right, it’s the combat system and how quickly the game throws you into the action. The tutorial gives you basic movement and attack options through a well-done interactive cutscene, followed by a very short tutorial on crafting. Crafting is a necessity. Once you make land, bushes, rocks, trees, the whole shebang are littered about and collecting them will be needed to make foodstuffs, equipment, and camp. Camps act as a crafting point as well as a place to respawn should you fall in combat or fall damage.
Don’t forget, this is a survival MMO—player versus player has always been New World’s focus, but player versus environment is apparently choice content for players this time around as well. I can’t quite judge the whole PvE aspect until I’ve completed all the content, but for what it’s worth I have liked what I’ve played so far. As for the main scenario takes players on a journey to rid Aeternum of a darkness that’s found itself wrapped around the rather large island—though of course I never quite got to leave the first town of Windsward. Most quests are fetch quests but the game at least does a good job of changing up objectives once in a while. You can find lots of journal notes scattered about, which give you bits of lore and plenty of experience points. I do means lots—the denizens of Aeternum have a penchant for losing their diaries.
All quests, side quests included, are fully voiced and are at least amusing. The writing gets the point across quickly, all though the actors have a penchant for referring to one another as “bastards” to a noticeable degree. The dialogue “options” you get with non-playable characters do not exist—the one option you have is a glorified ‘next’ button and you can’t even turn down a quest as far as I can remember. My favourite character in the game, so far, has been this pirate girl who goes by the name O’Malley. If only because she seems less swashbuckling pirate and more ‘if Hallmark made a pirate lady greeting card’.
It’s been nice giving New World: Aeternum a whirl. From the few hours I gave it, I’ve found myself a fun combat system, solid questing, and a gorgeous island with an unfortunate amount of running. I was forced offline from New World with positivity! Now of course, I never got to give the other half of Aeternum a shot: the massively multiplayer part of the game and this is important because the playerbase can make or break the game, depending on how good the tools the game gives the players are. The Open Beta will run from the 13th to the 16th this week and we shall see how PC, Xbox, and PlayStation players tear through this New World. ∎
