Is there anything Amazon doesn’t sell these days? The company is venturing into yet another market: multiplayer games. The most recent attempt to crack into this niche, called New World, was released last September. How is it performing?
Silver Spoon
Amazon Games Studios was born, already incredibly resourceful, counting on well-established streaming platforms like Twitch and a name recognized worldwide. Besides, its pocket is deep enough to fit all the best minds in the field. Yet, it has failed so far in developing a successful game like, let’s say… World of Warcraft.
In fact, Amazon Games’ history isn’t a bright one. Created in 2012, the Studios have been stumbling from one market failure to another ever since. The FPS game, called Crucible, left the platforms unnoticed less than five months after its release. Like Breakaway (2016-2018), and The Grand Tour (2019-2020), other titles followed the same path to oblivion.
In the playground of multiplayer games, Amazon’s titles have been treated like the kids with lice. At least, until now. The winds seem to finally be blowing favourably, and over 800,000 players washed ashore in the game New World in only four days online.
Getting Serious
Despite its initial success, it’s hard to predict the fate of the New World. Will it be popular enough to fill entire arenas in professional competitions? Will it make its way to the sportsbooks, as World of Warcraft did? Many sportsbooks offer bets on WoW tournaments, and if you visit the finest Canadian casino sites, you’ll find plenty of options open to you. Will the New World be successful at that point? Only time will tell!
The Game
New World is an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online RPG) game. The storyline and graphics look in every way, based on the colonization of the American continent. The creators claim there’s nothing colonialistic about the game; that’s only a fantasy that uses this moment as a background.
To be fair, there isn’t a single historical character in the game. Yet, the references aren’t vague enough sometimes, when it resembles the reality just “too much”. Problematizations aside, it does offer the opportunity to mix medieval weapons, guns, and magic items, all while in an exotic scenario. Here, Amazon shows off its Lumberyard engine, portraying exuberant flora and fauna.
Early Days
Users and reviewers have been testing New Word since the first day. There are reports of long queues in the servers to join the game. As reported in dexerto.com, a user had his hero deleted while waiting in the queue. This issue is even more disappointing if users have to pay to play the game. Because of technical issues, many of them couldn’t. So, there’s a lot of room for improvement here.
Heads Up
Indeed, New World is Amazon’s most successful venture in the field. How does it compare to the top game in the genre, World of Warcraft? It turns out both games have quite a few similarities.
Building Character
The game begins with a short trailer of your character below decks, with a crowd. Then, a screen shows up, with options for editing your character, from abilities to skin tone. Here, the game resembles WoW a lot, although it’s a standard beginning recipe for games of this kind. However, differently from WoW, the only race available in the New World is human.
Missions
NPCs inside settlements typically give missions. The types of missions are also sort of standard: recovering items, slaying a beast, reaching new settlements. The more quests the hero completes, the more benefits the settlement can offer in reward. Those benefits include crafting new items, gold, or more experience points.
City Life
In the settlements, the hero goes back to trade, rest, and get more missions. That’s pretty much the same for any RPG game. However, items are crafted differently in the New World. In fact, in Amazon’s game, the crafting section is extremely detailed.
Here, characters can learn professions and increase their Trading Skills. After developing those skills, it’s possible to unlock features like Armoring, Weapon smithing, and Engineering.
It’s even possible to craft furniture, to decorate the hero’s houses.
Getting Physical
The gameplay in combat situations feels very different in New World. Attack and blocking moves are triggered by the left and the right mouse button, respectively. There isn’t an option to click straight on the mob. Instead, the attack is guided by a crosshair mid-screen. It takes a few shots to get the mechanics of it, but it isn’t rocket science.
Conclusion
For enthusiasts of the MMORPG genre, New World ticks a lot of boxes. Despite some launching problems, like long queues for players, the game has many exciting features. Besides, it’s still under development. The last update was launched in October. Some improvements anticipated by fans, like supporting microtransactions, are yet to come by.