New World’s closed beta wrapped up on September 12 after getting a mixed but generally positive reaction. The game seems much more finished than during thehighly criticized closed beta in July and August. While it’s been something of a rocky road, the release of Amazon’s new MMO is right around the corner.
New Worldlaunches on September 28, letting players join their friends to explore and battle for control over the island of Aeternum. To help with that, Amazon Games just postedNew World’s official server list to the game’s Twitter account. Players can now coordinate to make sure they’re in the same world when the MMO goes live.
RELATED:New World Fan Compiles Paper Map of Aeternum
New Worldboasts 177 servers divided between five regions. Amazon named the servers after a mix of mythical or otherwise fictional realms ranging from Camelot to Atlantis to the Norse underworld of Hellheim. The regions are North America West with 22, North America East with 54, Central Europe with 64, Australia with 11, and South America with 26.
Amazon originally planned to releaseNew Worldin May of last year. However, the game faced multiple delays. It was initially pushed back to August, with the game receiving a closed beta at the end of July. However,New Worldstill wasn’t ready, featuring numerous bugs and balance issues. One humorous example was when the game’s auto moderatorbanned streamer AnnieFuchsia for milking a cow. Players also experienced crashes while performing everyday activities like fishing. There were also incidents of the game overloading and burning out some players' high-end graphics cards, as Windows Central reported at the time.
Given so many serious problems, it’s understandable Amazon Games decided to delayNew Worldonce more. However, this month’s open beta saw a more positive reaction and managed to pull in an impressive number of players on opening day.TheNew Worldopen beta peaked at over 140,000 concurrent playerson September 9, making it one of the most played games on Steam that day. Unfortunately,New Worldwasn’t able to maintain that initial wave of enthusiasm. The open beta also fell way short of the closed beta’s peak players.
The multiple delays, troubled rollout, and mixed reception might make some nervous aboutNew World’slong-term prospects. A few have even wonderedif there is room forNew Worldin the crowded MMORPG market. Still, no one who’s played the open beta seems ready to write the game off entirely, and the colonial aesthetic offers a change of pace from the traditional European fantasy setting. Ultimately, only time will tell ifNew Worldbecomes the nextWorld of WarcraftorAge of Conan.
