WORLD-WEARY
New World feels like it’s been algorithmically designed to ensnare anyone craving a big MMO. It ticks all the boxes and, as a bonus, smartly takes advantage of the seemingly inexhaustible desire for new crafting and survival games. It ensorcells with its many progression systems and has this impressive ability to make chopping down 100 trees at 2am seem like a reasonable, even entertaining, prospect.
This is true of the early days, at least, when everything is new and the island of Aeternum stretches out before you, beckoning you to explore it. But this is a game of diminishing returns that obstinately refuses to evolve, and with the honeymoon period over, I’m looking for an exit.
Things do get a bit more challenging as you approach the endgame
With its beefy crafting system, open PvP, player-led wars, and dynamic economy, it does so much right on paper, but the reality is a lot less scintillating: hour after hour of running through forests you’ve long grown sick of seeing, facing the same
