WORLD-WEARY

NEW WORLD tries to do a lot of things, but stumbles frequently

- Fraser Brown

New World feels like it’s been algorithmically designed to ensnare anyone craving a big MMO. It ticks all the boxes and, as a bonus, smartly takes advantage of the seemingly inexhaustible desire for new crafting and survival games. It ensorcells with its many progression systems and has this impressive ability to make chopping down 100 trees at 2am seem like a reasonable, even entertaining, prospect.

This is true of the early days, at least, when everything is new and the island of Aeternum stretches out before you, beckoning you to explore it. But this is a game of diminishing returns that obstinately refuses to evolve, and with the honeymoon period over, I’m looking for an exit.

With its beefy crafting system, open PvP, player-led wars, and dynamic economy, it does so much right on paper, but the reality is a lot less scintillating: hour after hour of running through forests you’ve long grown sick of seeing, facing the same enemies over and over for most of its 60 levels, praying for any kind of novelty to liberate the experience from the doldrums.

IDENTITY CRISIS

Even though so little has changed after hundreds of hours of grinding, I still can’t say I know New World. It is an MMO in desperate need of an identity. There’s a colonial aesthetic and old world pioneers exploring a magical island that looks like a big North American forest, but those themes and ideas aren’t really explored at all. It’s purely cosmetic.