Amazon delayed their MMO New World to summer

Amazon Game Studios announced earlier today that their ambitious MMO "New World" will not arrive this spring. Instead, the new release date is now 25.08.2020.

The announcement comes amidst COVID-19 crisis, stating that the outbreak and remote work are making some unplanned complications, which eventually led to this postponement.

"While we are still making great progress, developing an ambitious MMO like New World remotely has introduced some challenges. We want to make sure that we have the time needed to make New World the very best it can be for our players. As a result, we've chosen to delay the game's release in order to reach our quality bar as we work remotely for the foreseeable future," says the official announcement.

New World is one of the first big games made by Amazon Game Studios. This MMO is set in the alternative 17th century, on a fictional continent of Aeternum. It drives inspiration from the time of frontiers and British America, but with the supernatural and magical things added to mix, revolving around a powerful substance known as Azoth.

• Read more: Close to the Sun and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments are free on Epic Store

Initially, the game was planned to be hard-core always-on open-world full-loot PvP, but after a year of testing in open alfa, developers decided that this is unfun for a majority of players due to massive griefing, which resulted in an unpleasant experience for a lot of players. So they changed their PvP focus into a more controlled surrounding, based on three factions in the game: the Marauders, the Syndicate, and the Covenant.

After a few hours of initial playing, the player must choose his faction and then he becomes a part of that faction. Factions are separated into Companies and companies control settlements where people live, trade, craft, and socialize. Now, in order to engage in PvP, players must either flag themselves with PvP by doing Faction Missions, or to participate in Wars, which are the main PvP component: massive battles between factions in order to conquer new territories or to defend settlements.

• Read more: Complete Lord of the Rings Online content is free to play through 30th April

Besides PvP, there's also a PvE factor, mainly focused around "The Corruption," a dark force which will have a pivotal role in the story of the game. PvE content includes Corrupted Breaches, world events where the ground opens up and erupts with corrupted energy and enemies. Additionally, territory owners will need to protect their Forts and withstand an onslaught as waves of enemies attempt to bash their gates down and wipe out their Company. 

The game definitely looks promising and ambitious, but we still know very little about it. It is somehow worrisome that the game went through a sudden switch of focus just a few months from the release when they decided to ditch the hard-core PvP approach for a more casual oriented one.

If you want to know more about the game, we advise you to read a couple of blog posts on their official site, where you can find out more about the world of the game, how Companies and Settlements work, and other interesting and insightful tidbits.