The MMO New World has undergone several changes during its development. One of them was the basic design of the game, which turned out to be racist.
In a new insider report from well-known gaming journalist Jason Schreier (via Bloomberg), over 30 current and former employees shared their experiences at Amazon Gaming Studios.
The interviews also touched on the upcoming MMO New World and one of the many changes the game has undergone during its development.
This was the problem with New World: According to Schreier’s insider report, the basic setting of New World was originally quite different. In the pitch for the MMO, New World was set in America around the year 1600.
The players were colonists who occupied the land. They fought against enemies who, according to the report, resembled American natives. They were the “evil” faction in the earlier version of New World.
When one of the developers pointed out to executive Patrick Gilmore that the setting and the villains could be perceived as racist, Gilmore did not believe him.
It was only when the developers hired a special consultant who confirmed that the concept was indeed problematic that management relented. The setting was changed and from America became the mystical island Aeternum.
Often, the European settlers acted very brutally. They introduced diseases, plundered resources, or even committed atrocities against the indigenous population. You can find more info about colonialism on Wikipedia.
If Amazon had kept the game’s setting and the faction of villains as the original concept suggested, New World would likely have been heavily criticized.
The current state of New World
The development of Amazon’s big MMO has been rather bumpy so far. After the shift from full-loot PvP to PvE, the game was postponed and is now scheduled for release on May 25, 2021.
Currently, the game is in an alpha that is also receiving new updates and content. The latest patch brought, for example, changes in the crafting and combat system. However, the alpha is under NDA, so players cannot report openly about it.
However, the report also states:
Several Amazon employees are optimistic about the title. It has received positive buzz from streamers and is the kind of ambitious project that Jeff Bezos is known to support, according to the employees.
Bloomberg report
The report highlights further issues at Amazon Game Studios
However, the problems with New World were not the only ones plaguing Amazon Game Studios. The MMO was announced during TwitchCon 2016 alongside Breakaway and Crucible, both of which flopped.
There were also a number of unannounced games that were also scrapped. The blame for all the problems is said to lie primarily with the head of Amazon Game Studios, Mike Frazzini.
These are the issues with the head: One of the biggest problems for the developer was, according to the Bloomberg report, Mike Frazzini. Although he had been with Amazon for a long time, he had never developed a game before.
The report states that Frazzini also lacks an understanding of basic gaming aspects, such as the distinction between polished conceptual footage and real gameplay.
Frazzini demanded that the new Amazon games become “billion-dollar franchises,” but allocated too few developers to the teams, according to the report.
He wanted the new Amazon games to be as big as Call of Duty but innovative and completely different from anything that had come before. Regularly, Frazzini wanted the developers to chase current gaming trends. Therefore, briefly, Amazon was developing games inspired by League of Legends or Fortnite that were scrapped.
However, the problems at Amazon Game Studios did not end there:
- To properly enter the gaming business, Amazon Gaming Studios has hired various veterans for their games. Big names like Christoph Hartman from Take-Two and Portal developer Kim Swift were among them. However, their advice and expertise were often ignored by management.
- The developers had to use the development tool “Lumberyard,” which was developed by Crytek. The tool was supposed to replace Unreal Engine and Unity software, but it worked extremely slowly. Developers could play games or watch movies while waiting for Lumberyard to respond.
- The report also speaks of a “bro culture” within the company, which was directed against women. Female employees were overlooked, ignored, and ultimately pushed out of the company. They speak of the worst sexism they have experienced within the gaming industry.
The report paints an ugly picture of the development conditions at Amazon.
The MMO New World is one of the games we are hoping for much in 2021:
