New World – the MMO from Amazon Games – has launched and it’s attracted a high level of interest from the games community in the UK and beyond.
New World peaked with more than 700,000 concurrent PC players on Steam on September 28th 2021 according to the New World SteamDB page, and this is taking its load on the game.
Many users have reported long login queues on social media, with some as long as tens of thousands and wait times longer than ten hours.
The developers have responded, saying they are aware of the server issues, and that they are working hard to get them fixed:
The devs also said they will expand the capacity of the New World servers and will be offering free server transfers to players:
At the time of writing on the evening of September 28th, New World has become the most popular game on Twitch, with 884,000 viewers and big streamers like Asmongold and Shroud pulling in tens of thousand of viewers. Asmongold right now is just shy of 100,000 live viewers. Amazon of course also owns the livestreaming platform.
The news comes after rival MMO Final Fantasy 14 rose in popularity in recent months following the staff harassment scandal at World of Warcraft developer Activision Blizzard.
New World is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that pits players against the haunted wilderness of Aeternum, a mysterious supernatural island in the twilight of the Age of Exploration.
Players are shipwrecked on Aeternum, where ‘the fundamental laws of life and death are broken’.
“New World offers players endless opportunities to fight, forage, and forge as they explore and conquer the island and uncover its dark mysteries. Players can band together in factions to vie for control of the map in massive player vs. player battles, or venture off solo (or in small groups) to explore Aeternum and learn its secrets,” reads a blurb from a press release.
“More than 1m players have already set foot in Aeternum during our Beta tests, and today we are thrilled to welcome even more adventurers into New World,” said Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Games.
“New World’s epic battles, skill-based combat, beautiful setting, and deep crafting and progression make it a game you can really get lost in. And because Aeternum is a living world, created to change and evolve over time, today is only the beginning—we have so much more in store for players.”
New World features real-time action combat that is designed to be skill-based.
There’s also a bunch of multiplayer combat experiences, including war, with up to 100 players on the battlefield, outpost rush, with teams of 20 players from two competing factions fighting for control of fortifications and resources, as well as expeditions (five-player instanced dungeons) and invasions (groups of 50 players fight off waves of monsters).
To celebrate New World’s launch, Amazon Prime members can claim the exclusive Pirate Pack now through to November 1st. The pack includes a Pirate character skin, emote, and $4.99 worth of in-game currency. It is the first in a series of seven Prime Gaming drops to be released in 2021 for New World.
New World is now available on Amazon.co.uk and New World is also on Steam. The Standard Edition is £34.99, and the Deluxe Edition, featuring the Woodsman armor and hatchet skins, Mastiff house pet, Rock/Paper/Scissors emote set, and New World digital art book, is available for £43.99.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
Its worst game ever!!!! 2/3 of people who bought it cant play!!!!
what a shit fest 2870 in line to log in oh my god amazon get your act together quick to get our cash very slow to resolve issues
Bought the game.. spent 2 hours in a queue, jumped to an American server so i can at least see the game but it turns out its borderline impossible to start a new character at the same time as your friends as they will spawn half a map away.
Tried logging in a day later only to see a queue of thousands… Refunded the game, gave it a shit review and may come back when it goes on sale but its doubtful.
Seems the game is designed for streamers and their sheep to run around in.
Been in a que behind 28 people for over 2 hours now. Has dropped by 2 in that time. Never seen it this bad