New World Season Four, “Eternal Frost” is coming on December 12th. The team dives into the next major update, features, and some roadmap updates and changes.
In the latest dev update video, Game Director Scot Lane introduces the new season, along with a number of other team leads.
In the Eternal Frost narrative update, expect the return of the Silver Crows, including Grace O’Malley and Zander. Returning client Skye, the Speardaughter, has warnings of returning Varangians. In order to fight back, you’ll need to recruit some new allies. One, fire mage Daichi Saito, might join you if you fight him and earn his respect. This is one of the Soul Trials that Season Four adds.
Soul Trials are a focus in the narrative, so we can expect a series of them, offering new PvE challenges. Aside from Daichi, how does fighting an ice dragon, ice guardian,or even Mordred sound? These are some of what you can expect.
Speaking of ice, which is no surprise given the season title, The Glacial Tarn is the new level 65 expedition coming. Set in the Great Cleave, prepare to take on ice magic and enemies.
Season Four will add eight new Artifacts. These feature their own quests and you'll be able to obtain different ones to give your builds some extra versatility. The Boltcaster Bow letsyou shock enemies, Winged Shoes give you speed and shorter cooldowns, and more.
Later in the season, the update, which will head to the PTR in stages, will also bring back a few events. These include Legacy of Crassus and Winter Convergence.
Lane began the video with a few roadmap updates. In particular, things they’re needing to delay or scrap and why. The first revision is moving the Season Trial (which may not have mutators after all) so they can work on this update’s expedition. Second, the seasonal trinket looks off the table since they’ve developed Artifacts. With more feedback on Artifacts, they’ll weigh if a trinket is even needed.
Also getting a pause is the main story quest line, which they had planned to wrap in December, but will get some improvements first. Two final major roadmap changes are postponing cross-world Expeditions and Arenas in order to improve the group finder first. The group finder changes are already in the works and they plan to introduce the one-click, auto balanced group placement later in the season.
As for Territory Control, Influence Races are accomplishing many of their goals here. They’d rather listen to feedback and adjust a system that's already in place rather than throw another one in.
