October 1609, Port of Amsterdam. The suspiciously-hooded Father Russo and be-helmeted Captain Thorpe are setting off aboard a galleon in search of the island of legend. There’s immediately a sense of mystery and adventure, the era renowned for exploration and warfare. It’s an inviting setup, and one which immediately calls you to action.
You, of course, no longer being restricted to the youse of PC gaming. We’re just about three years on from the original launch of New World, with Amazon Games now bringing their colonialist fantasy to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with New World: Aeternum. We’ve delved into the open beta this past weekend, ahead of the full release on 15th October.
As a member of this ship’s crew, you’re set to explore, discover and gain fame and fortune, but you hadn’t banked on having to breach the Stormwall surrounding Aeternum. This bank of cloud, thunder and lightning looks thoroughly impassable, but Father Russo seems to have, with a mysterious box pulsating with blue light. However, as they attempt to make their way through the storm, an entity takes control of Captain Thorpe, murdering Russo, before making their way through the rest of the crew. Those, at least, that haven’t already been corrupted by the miasma surrounding Aeternum.
You make your way across the burning ship, learning the combat controls as you go, but, with the ship sinking, you soon find yourself on Aeternum’s shore.
You first choose an Archetype for your character, from the regular Soldier, whose heavy armour, sword and shield make him a natural tank/damage hybrid, through the more atypical Damage classes of the Ranger and Musketeer, to the hybrid Mystic class, that combines support magic with damage. I opted for the Swordbearer, their comically big sword giving me Berserk and Monster Hunter vibes. These are the type of vibes I like.
Each class also has it’s own set of Trade Skills to further the tough decision-making process. The Swordbearer has boosts in Leatherworking – this let’s you refine collected hides and turn them into leather – while Cooking and Fishing are also similarly enhanced. There’s a whole host of Trade Skills, with Mining, Weaving and Weaponsmithing just a small selection of the skills on offer.
As you’d expect, New World: Aeternum offers player progression that centres on gaining experience and collecting improved equipment. The opening quests give your starting gear a much-needed upgrade, and from there it becomes about tailoring your build to suit your playstyle. Rarer equipment carries a range of further skills or boosts so you’ll find from the outset you’re digging into the stats and buffs for every single piece. The community has warned during the beta, that New World Aeternum is something of a grind fest, but that’s just part of the territory if you’re an MMORPG fan.
New World Aeternum can be seriously beautiful, and the art design especially captures the incredible otherworldliness of the island of Aeternum. Your character model is less impressive though; while it’s relatively detailed, the animation looks and feels more like you’d expect of a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 game. Still, this is an MMO after all, and it has rather a lot to juggle.
Playing on Xbox Series X, there’s three different visual settings, with Quality, Performance and 4K giving players the option to tailor their experience. During the beta, there’s been a lot of other players running around every area – I imagine this will lessen through the full release as people move on beyond the opening areas – and it’s one of the things that I’ve always found ruins the grounding of many an MMO.
Still, this obviously has an impact on performance, and the frame rate takes a big tank when you’re in these heavily populated areas, particularly Windsward, the first city. The thing is, New World Aeternum looks far less impressive in Performance mode, dropping the resolution down to such a level that those Xbox 360 comparisons become even more relevant. It’s a shame, because there’s so much to like about the art design, and hopefully the full release will have seen more optimisations, allowing you to see all the wonderful details the team have included, while letting players shoot for 60fps.
Our first experience of New World: Aeternum has been a positive one, offering a beguiling world, intriguing storytelling and enjoyable action combat. Here’s hoping that it can sustain that excitement through many, many hours of adventuring. We’ll be first in line to find out.
