Amazon Games is bringing New World to console this October with new features, full feature parity with its PC counterpart, and more.
New World: Aeternum will release on Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5 and PC on October 15th, marking a massive update for the MMO and a turning point for Amazon Studios as it's the first self-developed and published MMO they have brought to console. New World: Aeternum will include everything the PC version has up until that point, including last year's excellent Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, and more, and will maintain feature parity across all platforms moving forward.
This is especially important because New World: Aeternum will include full cross-play between each platform, though cross-progression is not on the cards. As Katy Kaszynski, Senior Producer on New World told us via a press briefing ahead of today's announcement, if you make a character on any platform, it stays on that platform. However, you will have the ability to play with players from every version of the MMO, should you choose.
"You can actually turn [cross play] off," Kaszynski says. "There's going to be a dedicated, non-cross-play world for I believe one of the consoles, but the majority are going to be cross-play worlds. You can choose to turn that off in the settings, but the worlds themselves will be cross-play."
In addition to cross-play, New World Aeternum will also see a brand new PvP zone for players to enjoy. PvP is one of the main pillars of New World, and it has ever since its roots as a hardcore PvP survival MMO while still in development. This new PvP zone has been added to the game map and provides a proving ground of sorts for players to explore and hunt other players, creating epic clashes throughout. It's also a place for non-PvPers to tempt fate by running into the zone to find powerful new resources only found there, as well as its own new currency to earn that lets players buy new gear and such, according to Lead Console Designer Dave Maldonado.
"The PvP Zone is an open free-for-all area. It's just got tons of resources, it has a new currency that you can use to buy yourself all sorts of great new gear and whatnot. So it's not a traditional kind of PvP experience like the ones we've had in the past[.] So I think for players like me, for instance, that kind of avoid PvP at all costs, I have an actual blast running in there and just sort of sneaking around and trying to make it out with just as big of a haul of loot as I can without having to PvP."
New World: Aeternum will also feature a new 10-person raid, as well as its fully redesigned and streamlined leveling experience, complete with a new revamped story and dialogue system, in-game cinematics, and much more. Also coming are character archetypes for players to be able to jump in and play a bit more easily, though it should still be noted that New World is, at its core, a classless MMO. These archetypes are meant more as guide posts for new players to jump in with and understand that they aren't locked into a specific role from the start, but rather that they can choose their loadout, so to speak, and jump right into the action.
New World: Aeternum will launch on October 15th on Xbox Series consoles, PlayStation 5, and PC. Players on both consoles will need either PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass Core to play New World. Players who own the game and expansion on PC will receive the Aeternum upgrade at no cost, while console players will need to purchase a version of the MMO, starting at $59.99 for the standard edition, while the deluxe edition will set you back $79.99. Players who pre-order (and PC players who login) from now through October 14th will get a new Azoth Stalker Wolf Mount to use in-game.
