Amazon had a rocky start in the video game industry, but eventually found its footing with PC MMOs like Lost Ark, which was only published in the West, and New World, which it developed internally. Since it launched in 2021, New World has been a PC-exclusive, but that’s changing soon. At Summer Game Fest, Amazon announced that it is bringing the game to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S this October with some major content reworks and updates, as well as a new name: New World: Aeternum.
I went hands-on with New World: Aeternum at Summer Game Fest Play Days this year, and while I only played a little bit of New World on PC, I can already tell that a lot of work has been put into making this PC MMO feel good to play on console. On top of that, the solo experience also doesn’t feel off-putting, as is typically thae case in MMOs.
For those out of the loop, New World is a fantasy action game set in the era of colonization on an island called Aeternum that travelers get stuck on. Players forage for resources to craft food and gear and then keep completing quests in order to level up and improve their abilities. New World is a pretty tried-and-true MMO that doesn’t push the needle much, but it has a solid community that enjoys it. It does require grouping up with players sometimes, and its menus and much of the user experience are very much tailored for PC.
As such, Amazon had a lot of work to do in order to bring New World to consoles. At a digital preview event I attended prior to my Summer Game Fest demo, Lead Console Designer Dave Maldonado explained that on the technical front, Amazon added things like HDR and 4K support, and it also had to rework the user interface, controls, hit detection, lock-on system, combat camera, and more so it felt good on the controller. Basically, Amazon wants New World: Aeternum to feel less like a PC MMO and more like an action RPG made for consoles.
Game Director Scot Lane also explained how this mentality inspired Amazon to make New World’s single-player experience much better. “When we started thinking about console players, a few things jumped out to us pretty quickly,” Lane told Digital Trends. “One was solo gameplay — having that experience that a solo player can play through the story from beginning to end. And then, at the endgame, they can also have activities to do beyond crafting and gathering with solo trials.”
I got a feel for this during my Summer Game Fest demo, which showed me the reworked opening of the game. While a couple of small features, like being able to auto sprint in menus, hark back to its PC origins, New World: Aeternum felt great on an Xbox Series X controller. I never felt like I was fumbling over buttons, and features like lock-on were intuitive. The addition of an Archetype system (move over Metaphor: ReFantazio) also means that players have a more direct idea of what weapons and playstyle to pursue from the start. Lane also highlighted how Amazon reworked the story and narrative delivery to feel more like a console game.
“When we started thinking about an action RPG on console, we thought about how they tell stories and how we can enhance ours because we love the deep stories of Aeternum. There’s so much to explore. We wanted to give tools so players can get pulled more into that storytelling through our enhanced dialogue systems, in-game cinematics, and prerendered cinematics, just to really help build that experience around what I would expect as a console gamer.”
That sentiment was reflected in what I played, as New World now had more cinematic and in-engine cutscenes and dialogue presentation that felt more like a Dragon Age game than World of Warcraft. Overall, I think New World: Aeternum is shaping up to be well-tailored for consoles. I’m not sure what the hardcore PC community will think of this early-game overhaul; they’ll probably be more interested in the late-game raid and solo missions coming with the update.
New World: Aeternum will be released for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 15. The PC version of New World will be updated with all these new features on that same day.
