New World: Aeternum Review – Another Chance at Greatness

Live service games have quickly become a hot button issue. Most companies want one, elements of them are making their into every experience, with many being burned out by the overwhelming selection of things that aren’t worth the time. In the case of New World, it’s already fairly established having released on PC roughly 3 years ago. With the experience now on consoles, coupled with a wide variety of improvements, is New World: Aeternum worth getting into, or is it the latest flash in the pan experience?

New World: Aeternum starts by throwing players in the middle of conflict. They are introduced to a small cast of characters, a few mysterious concepts, and the guy on the packaging, Captain Thorpe. Most of these things go unexplained, instead inviting players to ask a number of questions about this mysterious new world.

Is This the Eclipse?

After a brief prologue the world of New World: Aeternum continues to expand. Some of this involves the usual MMORPG tricks, such as tutorials disguised as fetch quests, or saving some weirdo that turns out to be rather important. Even if this stuff is humdrum, New World: Aeternum does a good job of expanding the lore along the way.

It doesn’t take long to gain an understanding of what happened in the prologue, or have intriguing new mysteries to uncover. One choice I personally like is presenting important scenes differently.

Most scenes follow standard MMORPG convention. Players engage with the target, the camera pans to them for some dialogue, and this alternates until their function is complete. More important scenes are given brief cutscenes. Their quality varies, though any time one occurs players can immediately tell this is something important. The final type are voiced over quasi-comic book scenes. These are usually lore heavy sections that contain extremely important details about New World: Aeternum.

Campaign aside, New World: Aeternum does a good job of introducing the fundamentals. Players are given a small collection of items related to their previously chosen class, followed by a series of quests introducing materials, crafting, and the basic combat loop.

Each section is rather straightforward. Collecting wood and stones makes a blade, later players are asked to make food, all while being pushed to take on bigger, and more complicated foes. Each of these mechanics are fleshed out a bit more than I expected. Fans of said systems will likely enjoy exploring the various combinations, or simply stockpiling key resources to aid others on their adventure.

Gameplay is much closer to an action RPG than what I’d consider an MMORPG. Characters feel dynamic, each weapon has its own feel, and there is a strong emphasis on the fundamentals. It isn’t enough to exchange blows until someone dies, players need to dodge, block, and carve through a wide variety of obstacles. Even things like a bow need to be pulled back and aimed to be effective.

This makes fighting feel far more satisfying, especially when multiple enemies seek vengeance for their fallen allies. I can opt to shoot around a shield, or brute force through their defenses, hit critical locations for additional damage, or attempt to stun incoming threats to minimize damage.

Not only is this a lot of fun, New World: Aeternum does a fantastic job of presenting tooltips to players. Basic things are explained in a simple, and concise way. For example, bows deal 60 percent damage when hip-fired, short draw is 100, and a long draw is a massive 150 percent. It isn’t just basic information, even more nuanced elements are clearly explained.

Super Easy to Understand

Something like a musket scales damage at 90 percent of Dexterity, and 65 percent of Intelligence. Perks are listed as basic things, such as when surrounded by three or more foes within 3m of you, gain 20 percent haste; followed by confirmation haste impacts movement speed. This is great to see, as so many games either make similar concepts incredibly hard to understand, or over simplify them. The latter being one of the most common issues with Destiny 2.

The same attention of detail can be found throughout New World: Aeternum. Journal lists objectives in a simple way, complete with over 10 categories allowing players to focus on what they care about. Tutorials features a search bar, so if I am ever unsure how to do something I can just search for it. Maps give enemy level ranges on top of key locations. There is even a nice activity finder for those looking at experiencing everything New World: Aeternum has to offer.

All of these resources are important to master as Expeditions (think dungeon), Raids, and trials can be somewhat demanding. While I wouldn’t say this content reaches the highs found elsewhere, they’re a welcome change of pace that encourages players to work together. Even some of the harder bosses offer more elaborate combat loops. Plus, there are some unique mechanics that keep things fresh.

New World: Aeternum Review Verdict

Editor’s Note: New World: Aeternum was reviewed on PlayStation 5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.