Amazon’s New World gets a last-minute delay following beta

By Andrew Zucosky August 4, 2021

New World, Amazon’s upcoming MMO, has been delayed until September 28. This is the game’s fourth delay, as Amazon had originally pushed it to August 31. The developers explained that the reason for the delay is to incorporate player feedback from the beta.

On Twitter, the official New World account posted about the positive reception the beta had. The social media account claimed that over one million players tried out the beta, accumulating over 25 million hours of playtime. Because of the player feedback that the developers received, they have decided to push the release date of New World to the end of September. The developers apologize for the continued delay but want to assure players that they are focused on the “highest quality game possible at launch.”

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A message from the New World team. pic.twitter.com/oAZdK7dxTn

— New World (@playnewworld) August 4, 2021

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Notably, New World ran into a particularly nasty issue during its beta tests where the game was reportedly bricking certain graphics cards. The delay announcement doesn’t mention that problem, though it does say that the team is looking to “smash bugs” discovered during the beta.

This will be the second time that New World has been delayed this year, with a total of four game delays. Originally, the game was supposed to be released in spring 2020 but was delayed to August 2020. Because of the pandemic lockdown, the game was delayed a third time to spring 2021. However, the developers decided to delay New World for an August 31 release in order to work on the end-game content.

New World has taken the gaming world by storm. The game has been one of the most-viewed games on Twitch as well as one of the most-played games on Steam during the recent beta access. The game is being developed by Amazon Games Orange County as well as Relentless Studios, a team that is one of the main development divisions under Amazon Games. New World will launch for PC on September 28.

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Next week, Valorant gets its first new weapon since launch

A Valorant agent holds the new sniper rifle weapon Outlaw.

Valorant Episode 8 Act 1 begins next week, and today, Riot Games revealed that it will introduce a brand new weapon to the game. A double-barreled sniper rifle called the Outlaw, it is the first new weapon to come to Valorant since Riot Games released it in 2020.

As the third sniper rifle in Valorant, Outlaw stands out from the others because it's a two-shot weapon that doesn't break zoom when fired and has different reload times depending on how many shots are left. It'll cost 2,400 credits in the pre-round item shop, which puts it between the price tags of the other sniper rifles during a match.

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Amazon’s New World team is making a The Lord of the Rings MMO

Morfyyd Clark in "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power."

Amazon Games Orange County, the development team behind New World, announced that it is making a The Lord of the Rings MMO for PC and consoles.
This game was made possible thanks to a deal between Amazon and the Embracer Group-owned Freemode, which is the parent company of The Lord of the Rings stewards Middle-Earth Enterprises. This isn't the first time Amazon and Embracer Group have partnered either, as Amazon Games is set to publish the next Tomb Raider game from Embracer-owned studio Crystal Dynamics. This also isn't Amazon's first attempt at making a multiplayer game based on The Lord of the Rings.
Previously, it collaborated with the Chinese company Leyou on an MMO set in this world, but it was canceled after Leyou got acquired by Tencent. Now, with Middle-Earth Enterprises under new ownership, which Amazon just so happens to be friendly with, it has become possible for Amazon to make a multiplayer game based on The Lord of the Rings once again.

Amazon describes its upcoming The Lord of the Rings game as "an open-world MMO adventure in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy." This game seems to fall in line with the string of MMOs that Amazon has been behind lately, which includes New World, Lost Ark, and upcoming titles Blue Protocol and Throne and Liberty. It is unrelated to The Rings of Power, the big-budget television show that Amazon Studios produces.
As the game is in "the early stages of production," according to Amazon, we don't yet have a release window for it. In the meantime, there are going to be a lot of other games based on The Lord of the Rings to play, including EA's mobile game The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth and Daedelic Entertainment's action-adventure game about Gollum.

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Move over, Wordle: The New York Times has a new puzzle game

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The New York Times has introduced the next title coming to its Games catalog following Wordle's continued success -- and it's all about math. Digits has players adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers. You can play its beta for free online right now.
In Digits, players are presented with a target number that they need to match. Players are given six numbers and have the ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide them to get as close to the target as they can. Not every number needs to be used, though, so this game should put your math skills to the test as you combine numbers and try to make the right equations to get as close to the target number as possible.

Players will get a five-star rating if they match the target number exactly, a three-star rating if they get within 10 of the target, and a one-star rating if they can get within 25 of the target number. Currently, players are also able to access five different puzzles with increasingly larger numbers as well. I solved today's puzzle and found it to be an enjoyable number-based game that should appeal to inquisitive minds that like puzzle games such as Threes or other The New York Times titles like Wordle and Spelling Bee.
In an article unveiling Digits and detailing The New York Time Games team's process to game development, The Times says the team will use this free beta to fix bugs and assess if it's worth moving into a more active development phase "where the game is coded and the designs are finalized." So play Digits while you can, as The New York Times may move on from the project if it doesn't get the response it is hoping for.
Digits' beta is available to play for free now on The New York Times Games' website