New World - Amazon's foray into the MMO scene - Feb 9, 2019

Amazon's first open world MMO revealed

If Ark: Survival Evolved and World of Warcraft had a baby it would be New World. Double Helix studios, purchased by Amazon in 2014, is now the gaming arm of the eCommerce giant and has been working on this title for the last four years. While not in beta yet, this week developers provided a fist glimpse into the game.

You are a colonist in a 1700s settling a new land, establishing towns and villages, and even declaring war on neighboring factions. While this sounds run of the mill for the genre, one slight difference will be that the faction being attacked will have 24 hours to prepare for their defense. The softer approach to PvP might be a welcome change to the ganking that so many MMO players are used to and could help widen the appeal to less hardcore gamers. You will be able to gather supplies from your surroundings, hunt for food, and bring about some semblance of civilized life through the towns that will be entirely player driven.

In keeping with the sand-box theme, there are no quests, story lines, or clearly marked game progression points. This will be an MMO with all the allure of PvE and PvP without the ill thought out backstory and fetch-x quests that we have come to expect from modern MMOs. The pricing model has not been revealed yet, though a limited F2P experience with a ~$10-15/month for P2P is customary. Micro-transacions are always a hot button topic for MMOs so it will be interesting to see how Amazon approaches it. Extra rewards for Prime Members?

While no release date has been set for the beta yet, you can sign up to be notified of more details when they are released. Amazon has also released the recommend specs to you can start shopping now in case you current build isn't quite up to par: