A Whole New World

Don’t you dare close your eyes! Thanks, Amazon. Now you have me singing Disney songs almost out loud. After years of anticipation, Amazon’s MMO New World is now in beta phase and I finally got to sink my teeth into the starting areas of the game. While there is a ton to take in with a game that has no predefined classes or restrictions on things you can do, that can be quite overwhelming very quickly. While I’ll tackle that later, let’s just mention that the game looks and sounds absolutely phenomenal.

*This is not your average cel shaded or cartoony looking MMO. It’s truly gorgeous in both an artistical and technical sense.*

There are tons of fine looking MMOs on the market, a few impressive ones but IMHO, nothing so far like New World that combines stunning visual effects, subtle details in the environment, stellar voice acting, mixed with thumping sound effects, and beautiful music to boot. The audiovisual portion of the game are the strongest in my short time with the beta so far.

*Daylight. Sunrises. Sunsets. Moonlight. It all looks glorious in New World.*

Now, with that settled. How does the game actually play? Well, instead of boring you with pages of detail, I’ll sum up my experiences so far in a Good, Bad, Ugly format. Remember, this is a beta and subject to change. The full game isn’t scheduled to launch until August 31st of this year. After playing so many MMOs over the past 15+ years, I am hopeful for New World. It’s got enough unique flair to stand above the crowd but it needs to embrace those differences and not try to be like other games on the market.

Good

The graphics and audio are of top-notch quality. That has been established. Ok? Ok.
Total freedom in which weapons, skills, and professions to choose
Impressive and polished UI design. Much better than most MMOs out there.
Day and night transitions make each area feel completely different depending on time visited
Solid and meaty feel in combat (more on animation later)
So much to see, do, and explore

Bad

If we go into some areas, you will aggro 5-10 mobs. The aggro radius just feels a bit too aggressive when exploring.
While combat feels meaty overall, the jumping and movement animations feel clunky when you aren’t fighting
Spell effects, especially with fire, seem to be lacking the pizazz capable in the graphics engine
Going into town for the first time feels a bit… cluttered. Ok, it feels very cluttered.