Amazon Game Studio released a new trailer for its multiplayer co-op survival game New World at The Game Awards. It looks like major changes have taken place since we last saw the game.
New World is a team-based player-vs-player-vs-environment survival game with elements of exploration, resource exploitation, and expansion. I become part of a guild that creates a new culture, arriving on the shores of a strange island. I work with team-mates to scavenge resources, craft tools and build a base. Together, we seek to destroy other bases, and to survive attacks from those already on the island.
Back in February, Amazon showed the game to reporters. We felt that, while it looked good and played well, some of its themes were overtly imperialistic, with a heavy emphasis on colonists exterminating residents of a “new” country. Today’s trailer shows a much more fantasy-based story that looks to have eschewed the quasi-historical setting.
The settler now appears to be some kind of fantasy warrior, rather than a quasi-17th century colonist. More clarity is given to the fact that the enemies already on the island are previous settlers from earlier eras who have been corrupted by the land’s power. There’s a lot more variety to the monsters than the generic zombies that we saw earlier this year.
New World is out in May on Windows PC. We’ll have more on this game in the weeks ahead.
