New World: Aeternum’s premise has always felt intoxicating to me. Set during the golden age of sail, it’s a period in our history that effectively started to set up what we consider to be our modern world in ways that we are still grappling with some of the ramifications of to this day. Yet, Amazon Games Orange County took this period in history - the year 1609, to be exact - and melded it with the mythical, magical, and mysterious.
From the first moment I stepped onto Aeternum’s shores back in 2021, I could see the potential of the world Amazon was trying to build. While those first few weeks were a rush of territory claiming, wars between factions and companies, and more, it was also a period where we could start to see the cracks in the foundation of Amazon’s MMO.
While the world itself was beautiful and begged to be explored, the foundations of the story, the questline, and most crucially the grind to finish them, was just too tedious at launch. To their credit, Amazon didn’t just dig their heels in and plow forward without listening to the feedback - they have worked the last three years to change that initial onboarding, reduce the grind to something more manageable and fun, and completely overhauled the questing experience to be a much more tight, cinematic story experience.
From the early days when I couldn’t remember a single character’s name except Yonas - and that was mostly because of all the back and forth you had to do to him, the story of New World: Aternum is bustling with character. Grace O’Malley, Alestrom, Isabella, Medea, and more drip with character and are intriguing in their own right. Isabella might be one of my favorite antagonists in a modern MMO nowadays, and I’m not sure I could have said that about any character back in 2021.
Fast forward to 2024, and we’re weeks away from New World: Aeternum’s launch across Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5, and PC. We had the chance to check out some of Aeternum’s upcoming end-game content that will launch on the 15th during a visit to Amazon Games Orange County’s Irvine studio last week, and I came away feeling pretty confident about where the MMO is heading, especially if you’re an endgame PC player who has felt a bit spurned by a lack of content this year.
Revamping Cutlass Keys
One of the major additions that was part of the initial June announcement is the revamping of Cutlass Keys into New World’s first PvP zone. Cutlass Keys, situated in the southwest of the Eternal Isle, was originally a zone players would visit around level 26 or so. Now, the zone has been turned into an endgame area, much like what we saw with last year’s excellent Rise of the Angry Earth expansion and its revamping of First Light into Elysian Wilds.
While Cutlass Keys isn’t being transformed to that same degree, it’ll still feature a PvE area, and it is getting expanded thanks to changes the island has gone through.
“It’s worth noting that we added a lot of territory here,” New World: Aeternum’s creative director David Verfaillie told me in an interview during the preview event. “So only half of it’s PvP, but that PvP part is better than all of [what] Cutlass Keys used to be - or just about the same size”
“Someone’s gonna measure you,” Game Director Scot Lane put in quickly.
“I mean, you can just overlay the map, the current one to the old one and you’ll see we added a lot of territory,” Verfaillie continued with a chuckle. “And so that PvP area is pretty big, and it’s really oriented East to West. And as you see, when you go more and more West, two things happen: the content gets a little harder; and two, you’re further away from the exit. So it gets riskier and riskier.”
Dave isn’t wrong, as I quickly experienced in the first part of our preview. Myself and the other journalists at then event (as well as some of New World: Aeternum’s developers) were dropped into various spots throughout Cutlass Keys so that we wouldn’t all simply hop in and start a scrum. They wanted us to explore a bit before stumbling upon the new area called the Cursed Mists.
Immediately, I was surprised that I could still flag myself for PvE in Cutlass Keys, which, based on the way the new PvP zone was being pitched since the announcement, I figured I’d always be flagged for PvP. However, the PvE part of Cutlass Keys will still function like a regular zone. There is still a Fort to fight over, places to port to, and more. You can flag for PvP and fight other factions if you choose as well, all within the old part of the zone.
However, crossing into the Mists is a different beast altogether. The Cursed Mists are a free-for-all PvP zone. Faction no longer matters, and you’re flagged for PvP whether you want to be or not. Hopping into this new section of Cutlass Keys is fraught with danger, as I learned firsthand as I explored the Cursed Mists atop my Azoth Stalker mount.
There are still plenty of points of interest to explore, with new areas offering their own unique ways to engage in some PvP mayhem, as well as challenges from the Eternal Isle itself.
One new area, the Lightning Fields, is exactly what it sounds like. A stretch of land early into the new Cursed Mists, this area is part of the FFA zone, where you’ll need to look out for other players, but also try not to be struck by lightning as it crashes from the sky above.
I first stumbled upon this area to get away from the other players who started to populate a nearby bridge, which then turned into an intense arena where we all duked it out. I thought I was fleeing to some relative safety, only to realize I was mere seconds away from being struck by lightning.
Once I realized I was in more danger, I quickly rushed out of the region, only to be waylaid by another player, hungry for their first PvP kill of the day.
What played out over the course of the next forty or so minutes was hectic PvP fight after PvP fight. I would find myself trying to duel another player, only to have a third come crashing down, wielding a giant great axe to spoil our fun. Other players would take to the heights of the nearby stone ruins to rain arrows and bullets down on players, eager to get that final hit and secure a kill.
It was fun, too, as we started to see some players backing off of duels organically, trying to honor the blood pact playing out in front of us. However, like any good PvP region, chaos reigned, and more often than not, impromptu pacts would form to down the closest player with the least amount of health versus trying to start up an honorable one-on-one after a while.
There is no grouping in this new region - it is every player for themselves. In this sense, New World: Aeternum turns itself into a more hardcore PvP experience than it ever has been. Players will even drop loot from the new zone as they die, giving more incentive to kill - or strive for stealth to stay alive, especially if you’re just a simple gatherer aiming for the lucrative resources unearthed by the receding waters around Aeternum’s southwestern coast.
I was also very quickly reminded of how powerful AoE weapons are in New World’s PvP. Attacks such as the Great Sword’s Relentless Rush attack do monstrous damage to crowds, while even the Flail and Shield’s AoE void attacks put pressure on even the most heavily armored character.
It’ll be interesting to see whether we see a shift in the meta as players - especially long-established PC players at the outset - take to the new region. However, it’s clear that this endgame content is not for the faint of heart, and while the rewards promise to be great here, I can also understand the non-PvP-oriented player feeling a bit overwhelmed if they ever need to venture into the Cursed Mists.
I had a lot more luck going heavy armored with a Great Sword and Flail and Shield than I ever did with my trusty Rapier/Bow build. While I was more nimble with the previous build and scored some kills with Ripostes and Flurries of my Rapier, I was also very quickly burned down from a Fire Staff user named YungFarquaad in a pretty convincing fashion.
The Cursed Mists area is a test of skill - a skill I simply do not have despite playing regularly since launch. I’m curious whether we’ll see players make a name for themselves in each of the individual worlds, much like we did during the early days of Faction Warfare (at least on my first server). Since faction doesn’t matter, inter-factional rivalries could form between various weapon users, which could have implications during the next war sign-up.
I’ll admit - I am not the biggest fan of PvP in most of my MMOs. I love it in certain circumstances, such as a good fleet brawl or gank in EVE Online, but by and large I avoid most PvP in action-combat MMOs when I can. I was the same in New World once my initial review was filed back in 2021. I just don’t find getting killed out in the wild by other players all that fun when I’m just trying to gather iron or head back to a settlement to complete a quest turn-in and browse the player market.
Yet, I found myself having a ton of fun in New World, Aeternum’s new PvP zone. Maybe it was the constrained nature of our test: this was but an amuse-bouche of the full-fat experience that will launch on October 15th.
But I know this: I’ll be rushing those Lightning Fields once the game launches to see if this feeling lasts once I’m surrounded not by a dozen players, but potentially hundreds of PC players eager to let out their PvP frustrations.
Full Disclosure: Travel and Accommodation were provided by Amazon Games for this preview event.
