With Season of the Guardian coming March 12th, New World is not only adding new content, new story chapters, challenges, and events, the team is also introducing some big overhauls and improvements. In Amazon Game Studios’ latest preview, Lula Lucent, Senior Narrative Designer, breaks down the upcoming Season 5 main story quest and overall main story quest overhaul.
New World’s overall main story questline is getting a big revision. Lucent and other members of the team worked backwards over the content that was already in place, taking account of which NPCs were involved in which missions or areas, and how they might change or add new elements to improve the experience. Of course, there’s only a limited time to work on something like this, so the team had to fine tune what they were after. Material not used in this revision is something they might even revisit later.
Their design philosophy with the overhaul was, “Take the best elements we already have, repurpose and lean into them”. Lucent uses the example of Isabella and her vision of herself as humanity’s savior. With that in mind, “I made sure to create moments to showcase her in a commanding position. Not the least of which was making the story arc in Shattered Mountain all about preparing an attack on Myrkgard itself. It simply had to be where the climax to our narrative took place”.
After some of the content that was added in later updates, having Adiana be so directly involved in the MSQ didn’t make as much sense, so this is one of the changes to expect. Additionally, they had to take into account making the revised MSQ line up and make more logical sense with Rise of the Angry Earth.
In an accompanying new Forged in Aeternum video, Lucent talks about Season 5’s new main story quest, previewing the map and design choices. From adding POIs and how the team works to thread the player through such a large new area, how they work through planning things out and the challenges in bringing this all to life. They are careful to not really spoil anything, so if you’re anticipating the big Season of the Guardian update next month, you can watch this one without worry.
