New World: Aeternum

perma banned without any reason, just because i never chat...it doesn't mean i'm botting

it's better you fix your bot security before they harm other players like me

I'm writing this review out of spite, just spent 20 minutes killing an open world boss Peggnious punt or some shit that splits into 3 more bosses. The servers dead as usual so I have to do it myself at peak time, MY quest is to kill annoyed august or some shit one of the bosses it splits into who decides its a good fucking idea to jump inside the fucking mountain where its untargetable and just sits there taunting me telling me letting me know I aint ever getting my gemslot on my deepfreeze. This basically sums up the game with AGS never respecting your time.

i can review the game but cannot play it because apparently i have to BUY IT AGAIN???? this game is totally ruined and at this point the developers are just trying to bleed consumers of all the money possible before closing the game ones and for all. don't buy this game because it will probably just shut down soon

The fact that having had the game from the beginning means nothing is absolutely atrocious. Including the end-game content. Have a max level character but didn't want to reward them for removing content and tossing it in their expansion? Too bad. No end game content for you.

Before New World, I'd never bought a game then lost access to a bunch of content in the game that I paid for. Not what I had in mind when Amazon said they'd make a unique game. Thought I'd give the game a try after a couple years and turns out I'm supposed to pay $40 to play content I already purchased and played through.

The only reason I write negative review for this game is that they put MOUNTS in Paid DLC. This is the most annoying and disgusting thing the gamer can experience- find a really good mmorpg and discover that he has to pay extra 30$ to get Mount ???

What's the point of making a game only a select few will be able to play? I'm not sure what changed between the old version of the game and this new one, spec wise, but for me it's currently unplayable. Before I was able to play it on medium to high graphics, bit strenuous, bit laggy at times, but hey, my pc handled it like a champ. Now no matter how I fiddle with the graphics, somehow runescapes manages to look better than this game?? Are my pc specs the best? absolutely not. but it has and still manages to run other more demanding games and still make them look nice. I played this before and fell in love with it, despite all the gameplay shortcomings everyone had about it. It felt to me like perhaps Skyrim's great grandson. Not perfect, but invoked that same feeling. I had to stop playing because the game had a few game breaking glitches (universal, not just happening to me). Then it decided to do this weird re launch which I'm still confused about but oh well, maybe glitches gone right? Hours spent trying to troubleshoot with no success. What is the point of making a game that only those with high end PCs will be able to experience.

Utter shit, the game wont load and disconnect frequently. That this has not been fixed yet is just sad.

Ig they cant make a game that runs on a pc with out the playering having to adjust numrous setting to get the damn thing to run they need to hire someone that knows what they are doing.

Just stay away from this til they fix it. As if that will ever happen.

This game launched years ago at a more reasonable price point than sixty dollars US for the standard edition, eighty for a "deluxe" edition is quite laughable, I honestly laughed when I saw that an old game has be re-boxed and sold for 20 more than it launched :)

I was excited when it first came out and played it with my friends until the endless bugs made it unplayable. A few weeks ago I see this pop up in my feed and people kept saying the expansion made it good again. I went back, made a new character, and hit the level cap in less than three days. Now I have to make a choice of whether or not I want to pay for the expansion for 5 more levels, a mount, and the chance to wear equipment that are only slightly stronger than what I have.

While I did enjoy the three days that I played, it wasn't all that special. There's only like 5 or 6 types of enemies in the game and they only get reskinned/recolored as you move to different regions. I also hate that I lost the house I worked hard to get when I first played and can't get it again this time because it's suddenly locked behind the DLC. One thing that I did like is how easy it is to switch weapons since you can respec your stats any time (for a price) but that has nothing to do with the DLC. Overall, the price of the angry earth DLC isn't really worth what you're getting but you also won't get the full game if you don't get it. I feel cheated.

Bought it to play with friends. Most have quit. I didn't enjoy it much either. Feels rather clunky. I could be wrong but that's what it feels like to me.

This game has had many ups and down since launch. If you are going through the reviews to deciding if this game is worth it or not.. it 100% is. Many people will complain about lack of end game content(which there was at one point) but it will take you hundreds and hundreds of hours to get to that point. I can confidently say since the relaunch of this game it is in a great place! There is more pvp and pve content and it seems to run very smooth compared to where it was with all the bugs and issues before. I love the pvp in this game, the combat is amazing, the gearing selection is great and the flexibility to change your build at anytime is unlike any other game ive played. if you're on the fence about getting this game.. Do it. you wont regret it.

I don't know if it's just me but before Aeternum this game used to look really beautiful and sharp. Now it seems like anti-aliasing has been disabled, and the textures look... lower.

the quest design is awful, genuinely terrible. However, virtually almost every other mechanic in the game is very enjoyable like the combat and farming, expiditions and pvp.

Good looking game with a deep crafting system and market. However, you are charged for stuff like gear set saves and reskinning items in a game you have paid for. I have seen less monetization in FTP games.

Some players like me have endured the mess of the first months.

Then the servers started imploding... No longer I could play with low ping from South America.

Then, they asked for more money and pay-walled content... Time is enough value to give to a game that was on the brink of death every step of the way.

Now, they want me to pay full price for a rehash of a game I already paid full price for due to the aforementioned paywall.

I'm glad I can still give this thing a negative review because it is thoroughly deserved.

Want money or a change in my review?
- Re-add regional <50 ping servers
- Don't charge me full price for a product I ALREADY BOUGHT

600 hours wasted. This is the second time they bring out "fresh servers" and I'm not going to waste my time leveling a 3rd character to max. There's no incentive to start on fresh start servers, except for the facts that those are the only ones with people playing. Legacy servers are dead as hell. I truly have no idea why they think this is a good way of doing it.

Don't trust any of the reviews below 60h. They have no clue what they are talking about. To understand problems with this game 4h or 16h isn't enough time. No offense to casuals but, you don't know what's coming yet. The early game is good, and after you get to endgame many problems arise.

Making another character in this game makes no sense because you can switch between "classes" freely. I don't give af that people who played before will be further into the game than newer players. That's the whole point of a lasting world. Is the economy f'd? Of course, but so will the economy on fresh start in a few weeks, and this is a pointless way of adressing economy probelms.

Now it's not an MMORPG anymore, it's called an Action RPG, yet you still can't do dungeons solo. They added nothing new to support solo play at endgame.

Banking is probably the worst system I've ever seen in any MMO after playing them for 20 years. Despite people telling them year after year to fix it, they still are too lazy to put in any meaningful work into the game. The game director went full grey hair from all the stress and work, but looking at the game not much has changed. Definetly not enough for the amount of work they are claiming was put into reworking.

still the same busted pile of crap as it was on the original launch. It now just a shinier prettier pile of crap.

Put about 500 hours into this when it released because I enjoyed the gameplay loop, as bare as it was. Started playing again a month ago and I have to say I'm impressed. This is finally a proper MMO with lots to do. I give AGS credit for not giving up on New World.

theyve made a lot of good improvements with this game in the newest update but they have also made some huge mistakes. Adding the aimlock, or more like aim bot, into the game was a massive mistake and extremely detrimental to pvp. Especially in an action combat somewhat skill based mmo like this. If you're a pve player then maybe you dont care about these things, but if you like to pvp or are thinking about trying it, this will impact you. Basically if you get a blunderbuss player on you that decides to lock onto you with the aimlock, you're probably dead. sure you can kill them sometimes, but it does waaay more damage than it should. And all they are doing is locking on and spamming click. The damage is extremely high, even though they have nerfed the blunderbuss damage by 20%. It should be more like 60%, from what it is now. and pvp has other issues. Some musket builds. Hatchet especially. Basically all i see in pvp ATM is blunderbuss, hatchet, and musket, for the most part. But the biggest issue is an aim lock that no one wants. An aim assist would have been fine. But with all that being said, even though new world has come a lot way, the developers keep making terrible choices like this to chase people away and make it so we dont want to recommend the game to others. I still have fun, and will still play a bit until something else catches my attention, but the main point is that this is the kind of thing that will always hold this game back. Very bad choices that ags are too stubborn to revert.

On launch, I couldn't recommend this game even though I played 1100 hours of it.

Now, in its current state, I can recommend it as a fun MMORPG with souls-lite combat and more ways to have fun than I can keep track of. You're rewarded for doing basically anything in the game, so have fun and pick your poison.

My only issue currently is PVP arena matchmaking and its lack of care for balancing if there's a healer or not. You can queue as DPS and switch to healer mid match, making the queue system broken.

Supported this game on release and am now being punished? Can't even play anymore unless I shill out more money. I will never in my life buy a game from amazon studios or it's affiliates. Disgraceful.

Game was fun for some time but it feels dead and boring now. Also if you want to see some of the worst character creation with the ugliest faces in history of gaming this is a game for you :)

Be careful, if you want a refund for the DLC, the main game will be counted as playing time for the DLC, even if you haven't even started the game after purchasing it, Steam will refuse you the refund....cheap scam from Amazon Games.

I played this game a ton on release, the sounds and the visuals were amazing, but in reality the game lacks a lot of depth, it would have done amazing if they had included a more traditional questing and discovery system for MMO games. There is kind of sort of a main quest that nobody cares about, then there is looping grind in place of side quests.

Also, it isn't a super diverse game. There is the weapons and that is the major customization you are doing for abilities. I would have still preferred a more interesting classing system and more than just humans as a playable race (i understand these are all debatable design choices... Some might like it is all humans... But I don't)

Rise of the Angry Earth more like rise of an angry player base. nah these Devs dont care about you after the initial purchase. relaunched the game aimed at console players and a neat little double Dip from gullible new comers. There are better MMO's out there worth your time and money. you can tell it was aimed as a pvp game first and foremost and they just tacked on pve at the end to cater to the masses. clunky animations. how many times can you fight a Turkey?!

I'm level 55 and still haven't progressed the story-line enough to get my heart stone, Amazing game.

Let me explain, (but if you just want some flat start ratings of different aspects you can skip till the end.)
I've played as a Solo tribe in Ark official servers BEFORE the base rates were doubled.
B**** I can farm all day!

This game has my favourite sort of harvesting and crafting systems and I have been going absolutely ham with it.
to break it down by the features:
-Blueprints are unlocked as you level that crafting skill.
-Extra "rare"blue prints can be found, bought and sold. Some of which are learnt, others expended for each craft.
-You gain character AND crafting/gathering exp from the associated gathering or crafting action.
-You have a reasonable level of control over the end product and can use rarer materials with some crafts to create stronger items.

The Performance trade skill is incredibly fun, making any solo or party of adventurers take part in what can only be described as a game of "Bard Hero", pressing the associated keys at the correct moments to perform a wide collection of songs that you find as random drops through gathering resources and looting supply boxes littered around the world as well as the occasional side quest.
Once the band allows the full performance timer to expire for that song they, and those around them will gain a buff. The kind of buff, potency and time frame are dependant on the level of performers, their choice of buff from those available and the skill of said performance.
... And yes of course there is a fishing skill.
I have spent the majority of time in this game world just exploring and leveling all those trade skills which has resulted in probably somewhere in the realm of 20-30 levels of experience.

The combat hits that interesting middle ground where most combat skills are a mouse targeted affair.
With certain weapons you can even gain bonuses to headshots and a dodge mechanic tied heavily to a limited stamina supply allows for skill to be almost as important as the weapons and levels of the combatants.
The heavier your armor, the less effective your dodge mechanics will be with a lightly armored character dive rolling away while a knight in armor will manage a small backstep.
Skill trees are rather simple affairs that do still allow for a LOT of variation in play styles and their impact in pvp versus pve.
Respec-ing seems a relatively simple affair with players having FREE unlimited respecs of their players stats until level 60 and even your weapon trees being able to be respec-ed as well as a separate action.

Local voice chat, while not massively utilised in general play, is a fun little addition to the game play that opens a world of possibilities. (Remember how I mentioned Bard hero earlier...)
PvP is splintered into 3 main factions though these factions do have PvE methods of raising your rank and reputation as a member they are in constant conflict for control of the regions. when different events are won or lost, a territory may become vulnerable and war can be declared it by another faction.
This is an interesting concept I've made the poor choice of largely neglecting until recently and adds an extra level of communities built through common goals.

The story line... I'll confess I've skipped lots of with the intent on going back over and binging it eventually over the course of a weekend.
There is a fair whack of Lore in this game with many characters having interesting backgrounds and some clear references to historical and mythological figures to compliment the cut scenes, voice lines and a respectable number of scattered notes, grouped by their story and timeline.

In terms of in-game economy, wildly it is entirely player driven with no shops buying your junk, only players on the auction house. An interesting proposition that seems to work well but I expect to see Youtubers actively trying subvert and manipulate it shortly.

All in all I think this is a fantastic, subscription-less MMO


General Numbers (its hard to get 10)

Story (production quality - Volume of content)
-Content 9.5/10
-Production Quality 8/10
-Ability to repeat things or skip at will. 9/10
There is a lot of it, The models at times don't portray the emotions that well and the voice acting is mostly really good but no baulders gate.
It has a page in the menu to access and review the items, you can skip any cutscene at any time.

Crafting Systems
-Variety of actions/complexity of resources 10/10
-Ease of use 9/10
-Usefulness 6/10
I hate to vote any part of the crafting system low but there is one impactful problem. Because of how the player economy is entirely driven by what players will buy... EVERYONE is crafting and prices are kept low for many items by pure supply and demand, some into the proverbial ground.
You don't NEED to level in crafting to make your way in this world, you can sell the raw materials and buy evey thing you need and thus there is a lot players can choose to ignore entirely and buy the end products at low prices or get some basic levels in so they can get a specific bard hero buff.

Combat
-range of options 9/10*
-Flexibility 9.5/10
-Skill level 8/10
-Fun 8/10
There is not loads of options but the options they provide and ability to mix and match different armor abilities gives enough combinations to feel near perfect in terms of flexibility. While there is a level of skill to pvp engangements and clean pve fighting it falls slightly short of competitors like Black Desert and sadly that means the same has to be said of the fun, Atleast on the pve side of things.

World
-variety 9.5/10
-size 9/10
-ascethetic 9/10

System things
Graphics 8.5/10
Sound 9.5/10
Performance 8/10
I've got a decent PC and it runs well. The graphics are far from bad but some of the character models can look a little, ever so slightly odd.
The scenery is lovely and so are the soundscapes, especially regarding Bard Hero and the plethora of songs that can be played with one or more of the five instruments!
You probably want to run this on a solid state drive as I have had issues with things rending in slowly on first connection and occasional interruptions to connection or errors detecting other software on my computer as "suspicious"
these issues usually only persist for the first 5-10 minutes and then its clear.

All in all a solid MMO you can lose hours to or play casually just a few hours a week and still find satisfying.

Making people who bought the original game pay $30 to be able to play it after fixing the issues is wild.

I bought the game during original release and put in about 100 hours into it.
I returned in Oct 2024 to see if the expansion would be worth purchasing. I have played another 100 hours without purchasing the expansion as I only saw the 'mount' as a benefit during early game.

Now I am 60' capped, and they have taken existing areas we USED to have access to and hid them behind a paywall. So the game I originally purchased had content REMOVED and they want me to purchase an expansion to regain access to as much content as I originally had...and a mount. Gotta be honest there are 'greedier' moves gaming companies have done but this was enough to validate I can uninstall vs paying money to REGAIN access to previous areas on the map.

Fun game generally. End game is a problem though for new players big time. Gorgon is basically impossible for solos it seems as no one will invite anyone who +gorgons under 708gs and does not have the trophy (whatever that means) so your basically fucked. Most new players will get to 710 with a lot of luck and an extreme grind with the ck+ Run which can only be done once a day , meaning your only thing to do for about 2 months at endgame is +ck provided you get the right equipment to getting about 700-1200 ds a run . This mean that in pvp you will always be at a disadvantage.
Dungeons are dead , maybe one or two lobbies at a time and they provide nothing worth while after 650gs. So i have found the end game very annoying, adding solo q for gorgon would be great. It would solve a lot of the problems i am having. Early game and mid was really good. It is a shame.

After you buy the game, you also have to buy the DLC, which is almost 30 $ in order to have access to mounts and reach the new level cap, this game is such a joke. Stay away from it

Nothing much has changed with this game with the upgrade, the quest is a bit different. They took away stuff from the game and placed it in the new expansion, that`s nor fair because we paid for the content and it was taken away and they want to force you to buy the expansion, that`s unfair. We supported this game since beta, paid for the expensive package and even gifted it to family members, They don`t even want to play anymore even before the new release. This company cheated us out of money. They don`t fix bugs, and if they do, they add more issues. There is still a lot of rubber banding, we thought the new game would at least be gone with this, how wrong we where. They added swimming, but you have to spam your button to get somewhere, you still walk at places that is deep enough to swim. I am disappointed and very sad I had spent money on this game. I expected more with the new release, this game is going nowhere, I can already see the declining of players in this very short time.

Absolutely love the PvP, and they've finally fixed it hitreg so it feels nice now!
So they take away nameplates, so now you can't tell who's on your team and spend half the game swinging at your own team, or getting attacked by people you thought were teammates. It seems when they fix one thing, they CHOOSE to ruin it in a different way.

Unless you buy the DLC, the game treats you like an unwanted child. Because of this reason alone I would suggest not to buy the game or the DLC.

Other than that the open world is pretty great.

bought it when it first came out. came back to everyone riding around on horses and here i am running across the map unless i pay an extra $30.... couldn't even give the players that already paid too much for this game an ugly basic horse at least? That's a base level feature in even the worst MMOs. You're extortion artists and Amazon won't be seeing any more money from me when it comes to gaming as a result. Congrats

reached a certain part in game, and now it seems bugged not allowing me to progress any further. been like it for nearly a week now ! tried reporting it, sending feedback and nothing

After playing a bunch of different MMOs, this one feels a tad better than the rest. Not a whole lot of different, but just a bit better. Why anyone would prefer Throne and liberty over this one is beyond me.

After playing more than 40 hours in this game, I was wondering if I should mark this game as recommended or not recommended. If I could I would give it "mixed" rating. You can find some enjoyment playing this game, but the longer you play the more cracks and inconsistencies starts to show. Overall, It's not a bad game, it's just bad (MMO) RPG game.

Even though this game has nice graphics (except waterfalls, which look like from 2012) and beautiful sound design, the world in "New World: Aeternum" is bland, generic and uninteresting. The story and characters are AI level of bad. You couldn't care less about them and what's funny is that your companions also don't care about you. They always have something more important personal matter to do, leaving you alone to solve the crisis. You just can't immerse yourself in this world. There are no likeable characters or something interesting about lore.

Same with factions. They are so bland the best way to decide which one to join is based on color. Doing story quest for all 3 of them is waste of time.

On the bright side, this game has pretty fun combat. Open world PVP is fun until you start to do story quests and someone just kills you when you can't see them, because you are watching cutscene or just talking with NPC (this can also happen with mobs, which can spawn and attack you, while you can't see them).
I liked that there is proper Auction House with no build in RMT, so there is no p2w aspect if you like playing the market - buying low and selling high.

Big plus for running great on linux.
Overall mixed experience and a game I won't be coming back to.
Before you buy, check if anyone is still playing it.

the quest design is awful, genuinely terrible. However, virtually almost every other mechanic in the game is very enjoyable like the combat and farming, expiditions and pvp. Other than fetch quest after fetch quest after fetch quest, the game is super addictive and fun to level, the grind for gear feels rewarding as well.

With the Aeternum update, it kind of feels like this is the game it should've been at launch. So far most of main issues with the game have been resolved, for a start you can swim... However every time I've returned to the game the quest grind got to me around level 40 so I cannot comment on end game but I'm old and I enjoy the levelling journey in MMOs and if it's poor I couldn't careless what the end game is like, the game should be constantly fun and engaging.

What I can tell right away questing is much better, nothing groundbreaking it's an MMO after all, it's still kill 10 of these, collect 20 of this but it gives context now with voice acted cut-scenes and backstory, at launch it felt so hollow a text box, do this quest, why? Screw you that's why it's an MMO and you want XP right?

It seems, combat and gathering is mostly the same and this isn't an issue with the latter being easily the best part of the game, the chilled immersive vibes of being out in the wild gathering is still here.

In closing if combat and the way it played turned you off, you may not want to return, it's pretty much the same. However, if was the constant no context text box quests go out of town, kill return, another text box go out of town this does seem to have been addressed (so far).

Also works perfectly with a controller if that's your thing.

Pretty fun game, after the Aeternum update the game doesn't run on my pc anymore. Just loads indefinitely and I get a T posed character and then crash. All modern current hardware and the game worked fine when I bought it at release.

It's so insanely bad. Every interaction with the convoluted UI feels like interacting with a vegas slot machine. Just opening a starting reward box after the very first quest puts up a giant fullscreen overlay with flashbang effects just to show you that you got a couple of beginner items. I just can't deal with this.

Game is currently UNPLAYABLE. 100+ crashes due to 'Lag Detection" anti-cheat in first week of new release. I have a top-end rig, high speed WiFI and fiber high speed internet. This is the ONLY game having problems. I tried every trouble-shooting suggestion available but can't fix it.

Checked into the game for about 3 or so hours to see how things have changed if for the better or not... Some stuff changed for the better of it, but other aspects still remain the same. Bots galore, toxic AF community in the chat channels, lack of any substantial action on devs end to actually deal with the cancerous players who sour what could be an otherwise decent experience.

Even if they were to do a complete 180 and add the QoL changes to the game that people have wanted since day 1... Like killed animals having a time limit on it for the person who killed it to be able to be the one to skin it so that the bots don't steal your kills/carves etc.

Is this review some whining and gripes? Yes, but it is things that drag what could otherwise be a good game down...

If the game were a solid 7 out of 10, the community and it's extreme toxicity drag it down to a 5 out of 10 if being generous.

I wish steam reviews had a 'middle of the road' option for reviewing.

The User Interface and Controls have take a step back just so the game can support console. Quite frustrating to use for healing. Most old bugs are still not fixed and new bugs have been introduced. What bugs have been fixed feel like workaround solutions rather than addressing the actual issue.

Aimbot Blunderbuss takes the game. Please fix the target lock before everyone dont queue OPR anymore because of players are abusing Blunderbuss target lock system. You cant really do about it, there is no counter play.

Another MMORPG has locked a core gameplay feature behind a paywall. While players can unlock mounts at level 20, the mount quest—and the ability to use mounts—requires purchasing a DLC. This creates an unfair advantage for paying players over those who choose not to spend money. Such practices are a clear example of predatory game design. It's best to avoid games that require spending money to access essential gameplay mechanics.

Apart from the game not starting 50% of the time i try to open it, and the insane server lag as well as the overpriced micro transactions (£20 for a battlepass) oh and the awful balancing in the game after level 65 ah and I almost forgot how much of a slog the game becomes after level 55 til 65 and the lack of content updates for endgame since launch along with the fact they charge AAA prices for a game which barely functions (animations not working, constant stutters,crashes bugs all coming from the 5th richest company in the world btw) I suppose its pretty fun

it would be worth it for £30 not £50

Overall, I really like New World. The environments can be breathtaking. Voice acting so far has been good, and combat is fun. I also love the cathartic experience of crafting and gathering in the game. Sounds great right? So why is this a thumbs down review?

MONETIZATION.

Look, I get it, they want to make money from the game. It's not just a game it's a business, and to make future content they need cash flow to make that happen. Monetizing transmog though? Seriously? $2 to unlock transmog for a SINGLE item. That's if you spend $20 for the 10 token bundle. When I stumbled into this I felt the need to uninstall the game immediately. I should have done a little more research before making my purchase. Learn from my mistake, vote with your wallet and don't buy the game until transmog is free.

Bought the game for 40 dollars when it released. Wanted to come back and give the game a try because of the update. I see that there is now a standard edition for 60 and a expansion pass for 30. New players can just buy the standard edition and have full access to the new update without even buying the expansion pass. The issue is players are returning and might accidentally buy the standard edition not knowing that if they just buy the expansion pass for 30 dollars they have access to the full update because they already had the base game. If you don't see the issue with this idk what to tell u