On the heels of Crucible‘s announced retrenching following a disappointing Early Access period, Amazon Games has announced their MMORPG New World will not be releasing on August 25 as initially planned. The launch has been pushed back to sometime in Spring 2021.
In a blog post on the game’s site, Studio Director Rich Lawrence laid out the reasoning behind the move:
“When we examined the feedback we received over the last several months from our Alpha audience, we saw that players like the game, and they would like to see even more of it. In particular, we want to ensure that the most dedicated players have plenty of middle and endgame experiences as they venture through Aeternum. We want our players to feel completely immersed in the game, and know that our studio stands for quality and lasting gameplay you can trust — and that means added time to get things where we want them before we fully release.”
As an apology to those who had signed up for what they expected to be the pre-launch beta period and those who pre-ordered the game, Amazon Games will be opening the game up in its current state on August 25 for a limited period. The stated purpose is to show those individuals the current state of the game and demonstrate how much they’ve done, and how much further they have to go.
This is not the first time New World has suffered a delay. Back in April, with its original May release date looming, Amazon Games delayed the game citing the outbreak of COVID-19. It is, however, the first delay, which is directly attributable to a developer’s decision. If the midgame and endgame content is lacking, or simply lackluster, another nine months or so might be enough to correct the problems alpha testers discovered.
