New World Aeternum - Should You Play it? Is it Worth It in 2024?
Oct. 15, 2024In this article, we’re going to be taking a look atNew World: Aeternum, which launches onOctober 15thforPlayStation 5,Xbox Series X and S, and onPC. Before I tell you all aboutNew World: Aeternum, however, a big shout out toAmazon Gamesfor sponsoring this article.
This is a sponsored post. Please note sponsored posts are only sponsoring coverage, our opinions on the game are our own and not affected by any business relationships with developers or publishers.
The Difference Between New World and New World Aeternum
So what isNew World Aeternumand how is it different fromNew World?New World Aeternumis essentially a culmination of all patches, content expansions, and updates forNew World, along with new content that is coming to the game on October 15th that has not yet been played by players. Another thing thatNew World Aeternumhas is it has more of a focus on the solo and co-op experience than was previously available. And when you look at what they have done, they’ve kind of revamped thatquesting processto includecut scenesandcinematicsthat sort of better explain what’s happening.
I think this is maybe one of the flaws ofNew Worldwhen it launched was we didn’t really know why we were there and what we were doing very well. But this has been better explained, and it kind of gives you a bit more of a runway before you get into activities with other players to really understand what’s going on in the world and kind of get your bearings a bit more before you’re just kind of thrust into everything. AndNew World Aeternumis the first time that you’ll be able to play onconsole, and there are not a lot of games like this onconsole. I think there are a lot of people out there who are looking forward to playing this game on console. I got to play theopen betafor it onPlayStation 5a little ways back. And let me tell you, it absolutely played fantastic onconsole.
In a day and age where performance is a huge issue on any platform, really, but particularlyconsolesthese days, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the game played smoothly on console. And I was probably getting over 60 FPS or at least 60 FPS the entire time I was playing. I don’t think it dropped below that at all at one point. So the game plays well. And on top of that, this was my first time playing with a controller, and I liked trying to figure out how to playNew World Aeternumwith a controller because previously I had played on PC with a mouse and keyboard like everybody did pretty much. I imagine some people used controllers back then.
Playing on thecontrollerfelt good and the controls felt natural. You don’t have a ton of skills to use at once so you’re not trying to remember a thousand button mappings or anything like that. It was an easy rotation of skills.Ranged combatfelt good.Melee combatfelt good. Everything was smooth because of the goodframe rate. Honestly, I was just pleasantly surprised by how well it played onconsole. And I think that they did a fantastic job here.
Something that I loved while checking out thatopen betaas well is that I noticed that in thechaton the left side of the screen, which was popping, by the way, there were lots of people playing theopen beta. I don’t know if all those people are going to buy the game or not, but there were a lot of people playing thebeta, checking it out to see if it’s something they would enjoy.
But something you got to see on the left-hand side was thechatand you could see all the people talking, and it would show the platform they were talking from becauseNew World: Aeternumhascross-playenabled. So you can play with people onPC,Xbox, orPlayStation, no matter which platform you’re playing on. And this should ensure that you have tons of people to play with all the time. You’re not going to be wondering where’s the player base in a month. Hopefully, there’s still a strong player base because of that cross-play. And I know that’s always a concern for people.
Something that I noticed during theopen betathat I played as well is that they’ve added alock-on featureto the game that makes it feel more like anARPGthan it previously was. You have that kind ofsouls-likelock-on that you expect from games of that type, and it is now in the game. And it kind of changes the way thatNew World: Aeternumplays because previously withprojectile weaponsand things like that, you had to manually aim them—and you still can manually aim them, and you may want to depending on what you’re facing. But also now, because there’s alock-on, it changes the way you fight incombat, not only from arangedperspective but from ameleeperspective.
From ameleeperspective, it just felt like your hits were connecting more because yourcamerawas focusing on the targets you were fighting a bit more, and I enjoyed that. But from a ranged perspective, ranged combat was much easier to play because you could select which target you wanted to lock onto and just hit them withranged attackspretty reliably. And it should change the way things play in the game. For instance,PvPshould be different because if you can lock onto a player with abow, then players are going to have to come up with a strategy to combat that.
If you’re using a musket, for instance, and you’re ranging down players from far away, you’ll still probably have to manually aim because when you’re far away, by the time theprojectilelands there, it’s probably not going to be exactly where that player still was because theprojectilehas sometravel time. So there are still going to be instances where you might manually aim, but I do think the addition of alock-onwill make things easier for players and should fundamentally change the way the game plays in general.
Having played theopen betaonPlayStation 5for about 10 to 15 hours, I can tell you that I just felt kind of at home when I was playing. I gradually remembered things that I had forgotten, and I was like, “Oh, yeah, this isEverfalland this isWindsward.” And these locations were familiar to me, and it was kind of all coming back to me. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I need tocraftthis and do that and go out and findore“, and I remember where thisorewas, and it felt really good. And I think one of the things that’s special aboutNew World Aeternumis theleveling experience.
This game has a fantasticleveling experience. I think it’s arguably the best or one of the bestleveling experiencesof similar games out there. A lot of these types of games that people play focus on theend gameand what’s available to do once you’re done leveling, and they hateleveling, and they don’t want toleveland they just want to level quickly and get to theend game. But I feel likeNew World Aeternumis exactly the opposite. The beginning part of the game is the best. Theleveling experienceis the best part. I absolutely love that and I think one of the fundamental reasons thatlevelingis so much fun inNew World Aeternumis because of the game’scrafting system.
New World Aeternumhas a really interestingcrafting systemthat rewards the player for investing time and effort into crafting. A lot of the best in-slot gear you can get is from crafting. So players spending the time to gather resources, farm resources, and craft gear, sell it to get more materials, and go out and find rare nodes, and spending their valuable time doing it are really rewarded for that. And it’s something that you can do at your own pace. You can log in and just do it for a couple of hours by yourself or you can get a couple of friends and go farm some trees or some ore, do whatever you want. And it’s a really cathartic activity.
As a gamer who’s been around for quite a while now, I enjoy the cathartic nature of the crafting system and the exploration inNew World. You can get lost in the landscape, find resources out there, and discover cool bosses that have unique drops. There is a lot of real fun to be had there. And I am looking for that in games these days. There was a day and age where I would get amped up playingCall of Dutyor something likeBattlefield, but now it’s like I want something a bit more relaxing, and it’s a lot of fun to do inNew World. And I think there are players out there like me that can just kind of enjoy that for what it is.
And of course, on the flip side of that, there’s thePvP, and I have been known to dabble inPvPinNew World Aeternuma bit. I love low-level PvP in this game before all the territories have been claimed and stuff gets into these big battles. There is a lot of fun to be had in the PvP of New World Aeternum because of its nature. And there are many PvP activities you can do in New World if you want.
I have my favorite, which we’ll go into in a minute, but there’s like a 3v3 arena. You can do large-scale PvP in the sieges, and you can do open-world PvP, and there are other things. And one of the things that’s great, too, is that there’s a newactivity finderthat allows you to party up for these activities.
If you don’t know anyone and you’re brand new to the game and you want to get involved in some of these activities, whether they’rePvPorPvE, you can use theactivity finderto find a group to get people. And maybe you’ll make friends that way and then find groups of people to continue playing with. It’s a great way to get people into group activities without having to know a lot of people and it’s definitely needed in a lot of games. This is one that was sorely needed, and I’m glad to see that it is there now. But my favorite part of PvP in New World Aeternum, and maybe even my favorite part of the game in general, is the open-world nature of PvP.
Tosiegea town that somefactioncontrols in the game, you have to do thesePvE questsin a region that afactioncontrols. And each quest you complete fills a little bit of progress towards a bar. And when that bar completes, you can then do asiege. Well, the more people from yourfactionthat do it, the faster it fills. And these quests are kind of similar everywhere you go. You kind of know what you’re doing every time. And as a defender, you’re not going to just let people do that, so what you do is you go out on the landscape with yourfactionand your friends and you stop them out on the landscape. But since you know what routes they’re going to take, you learn this after playing for a while.
You can lie in wait, ambush them, charge them, and shoot them from behind or get them when they’re in a river and they can’t move very well and just gun them down. And it is so much fun to plan and sneak because you can crawl in the game. You can crouch, you can hide in bushes, lie in wait, get the drop on people. And it is just really, really fun to do, particularly at low levels where everyone hasn’t quite figured everything out yet, and no one has super optimalgearand made it everything.
When I look back at the amount of game time I got out of it, I didn’t play too much longer. I probably played for a month and then I kind of stopped playing, kind of petered out. But even for that amount of time, I think it was easily worth the money that I spent. And I would definitely do it again. Knowing what I know now about the game, I definitely would do it again if I had the opportunity because it was just that much fun.
The last thing I’ll say before wrapping up this article is that during thebeta, I was co-opting withFexand she’d never playedNew World Aeternumbefore. And I had a lot of experience. So we had two different complete levels of game time in this game and she had a ton of fun playing. She wanted to keep playing. Thebetawasn’t long enough. We had other work to do and we couldn’t spend as much time playing as we wanted. But she wanted to keep playing. And we were like, “Oh, how can we find time in October to play, even though we have all these other games coming out?” Like we have to find some time to play this.
And as someone who played many, many hours before, I wanted to keep playing, too. Two completely different people, a returning player, and a brand new player. We both wanted to keep playing it and scratch that itch that made you want to stay up all night and play. I think that’s a good sign for this game. So that wraps up our article onNew World Aeternum.
I hope you guys enjoyed this article again. Big shout out toAmazon Gamesfor sponsoring this article. If you guys are going to pick up the game,our wikicould be helpful for you. I know there are someconsoleplayers out there who are probably itching to play this.
I will probably be playing onPS5at the launch of the game just because I had so much fun during thebeta. I tried. I don’t want to play too much and then burn myself out. So I kind of tried to limit it. But I am looking forward to playing more and jumping some people that are doing somePVPout there. I can’t wait to do some of that. And we might have some moreNew World Aeternumarticles coming out soon, too, as well. Some guides for new players we’ll see. So let me know what you guys think. What do you make ofNew World Aeternum? Are you going to be picking it up? Let me know in the comments.
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
