The new Aeternum version of New World has only partially succeeded in sustainably attracting new or returning players to the MMORPG’s game world. Populations are already so low on many servers that action is necessary.
What is the situation with New World? Due to the lack of official numbers, it is unclear how many players have actually tried New World Aeternum on all platforms, but there are several indicators that make it very likely that the revamped version of the MMORPG and the console release have fallen short of expectations.
- The peak on Steam during the Aeternum launch was 61,437 concurrent players (via steamdb.info). During the expansion the previous year, it peaked at 77,642. About a month after the new high, there are only about 24,700 concurrent active Steam players during prime time – trend declining.
- This month saw 1,629 new reviews added on Steam. Only 66 percent of user reviews were positive. That’s just enough for a “Mixed” rating.
- Unlike Throne and Liberty, Amazon Games has not released specific player numbers for New World Aeternum, which is always a sign that there is nothing to celebrate in terms of player count.
The gameplay trailer for the launch of New World Aeternum:
History repeats itself
What measures is Amazon Games taking? Due to the low server capacities, the developers had to launch numerous new servers for Aeternum in order to provide a virtual home for all interested players. The EU Central region alone has 13 crossplay servers and one each for PlayStation and Xbox.
Similar to the first launch in September 2021, the inflexible server infrastructure is causing problems now. To avoid ghost servers and ensure healthy populations, Amazon Games has now announced on X the merging of worlds. Below we summarize what is known for the EU servers:
- The world populations of Centaurus and Asterion will be merged.
- The world populations of Kronos and Aaru will be merged.
Those affected may transfer their characters to another server in the region between November 25, 2024, and December 5, 2024. On December 5, 2024, the retiring worlds (namely Centaurus and Kronos for the EU region) will go offline. All characters and companies will then be moved to the assigned server.
How is the community reacting? On Reddit and X, the announcement is already being hotly debated.
- Perx writes on X: “That’s far too few. My server is dead. I can’t say how many are still playing since they are now hiding the server population. This will just be the first round of merges, and more will follow in a few days, or is that it?!”
- Corechamber explains on X the low player numbers: “With the mount expansion, they drove away too many people. As long as that isn’t fixed, many won’t return, or that’s my opinion based on the posts I’ve read. If they wanted $70 for the game, they shouldn’t have sold it for $40 and then tried to force players to pay more.”
- No_Reason_TL takes it with dark humor (via Reddit): “Yeah, another server merger. My server history so far is: Crassus, Nyx, Kronos, Aaru. Let’s see how many more there will be.”
- monchota has a solution (via Reddit): “Just get rid of the faction system and its impact on the cities. Make the servers worlds and split the cities into shards. The vast majority of the player base is punished by the faction system, as it is impossible to get in.”
The frustration of many players is understandable. Server mergers always result in communities being torn apart, and those affected lose a part of their progress (even if it’s just the reputation they built on their server). Many modern MMORPGs therefore rely on region-wide megaservers, on which populations can be flexibly moved around.
However, this is not the only mistake that Amazon Games has made with New World or the new Aeternum version. You can find MeinMMO’s analysis here: Aeternum was supposed to bring a big boost for the MMORPG New World, but Amazon Games made a blunder on purpose
