Despite extensive adjustments and the launch on PlayStation and Xbox, New World Aeternum has only managed to attract a manageable number of players sustainably to Aeternum. The YouTuber and streamer specialized in MMORPGs, Entenburg, reveals in a new video why he is also disappointed with the reboot.
How successful has New World Aeternum been? Without exact numbers from Amazon Games, this cannot be said with complete certainty. What is known:
- 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. Two months after the new high, there are only about 15,000 concurrent Steam players during prime time again – with a downward trend.
- This month, 968 new reviews have been added on Steam. At least 75 percent of user reviews were positive. The month before, it was only 66 percent out of around 1,630 reviews.
- Unlike Throne and Liberty, Amazon Games has still not published any specific player numbers for New World Aeternum, which is always a sign that there is nothing to celebrate in terms of player numbers.
- In November, Amazon Games announced the first server merges since the Aeternum launch. EU servers were also affected.
When looking at how much energy has gone into the revisions and console ports, Amazon Games cannot be fully satisfied with this.
Here you see the gameplay trailer for the launch of New World Aeternum:
“I really tried to like New World Aeternum…”
What is Entenburg’s analysis like? A few days ago, a video was posted on the main channel of MMORPG enthusiast Entenburg, where the popular streamer and YouTuber summarizes his impressions of New World Aeternum.
Below we summarize the most important insights for you. If you want to watch the full 26 minutes and 16 seconds – which we highly recommend – you can find the analysis on YouTube or directly here:
Entenburg makes it clear right at the beginning that you can expect an “audiovisual orgy of disappointment” from the video. He delivers AAA, i.e., accusation, reckoning, and farewell in one. Although he admits that the planned farewell due to the roadmap announced at the end of November will only become a “pause” again.
The YouTuber emphasizes before starting his analysis that he has been following New World since its development. His hope all these years was that Amazon Games could eventually better highlight the unique and partly great aspects that New World has to offer. With the launch version of New World Aeternum, he believes this did not succeed. The reasons:
- Like many other long-term PC players of New World, Entenburg is also dissatisfied with Aeternum because there are not enough new contents that specifically address these fans who have stayed loyal to New World from the launch until this year.
- This is exacerbated because the developers actually have to make up for a lot with the PC players due to the long drought of content and the often difficult communication.
- Frequently requested contents like practice wars or fresh PvP modes are still missing.
- There is a new gear tier for the endgame, but it is far too disconnected from the actually good dungeon content.
- The new solo challenges are nicely done, but too easy and quickly become unworthy. The Gorgon raid is good but extremely difficult. The new open PvP zone can be fun but can also frustrate quickly. Overall, this is – once again – too little to attract many veterans to the servers in the long term.
- The new entry offers a visual and staged wow-promise that New World cannot keep afterwards.
- The new archetypes suggest a class system that does not actually exist in that form. This causes confusion and false expectations among new players.
- Although Amazon Games has put in a tremendous effort to improve the campaign and quest experience, the leveling phase is now disappointingly short and easy.
- New World Aeternum was full of bugs at launch, there were crashes, and of course, many well-known and new PvP exploits are also in place.
- Frequently requested quality-of-life improvements like saveable talent builds or guild chests are still missing. Additionally, not all UI adjustments hit the mark, especially regarding the display of debuffs.
- Being able to target enemies with a target lock and automatically hit them takes one of the MMORPG’s greatest strengths: the previously unique gameplay that is sometimes designed to specifically target certain body areas of the opponent. Moreover, it is now much too easy to hit moving adversaries with certain spells and skills effortlessly.
- Unfortunately, the new test phase is only available for consoles and not for PC.
How does the community evaluate the video and NWA?
- KK-be8rv writes on YouTube: “I gave the game a chance. In the end, it feels like just another to-do list that I have to complete after my work.”
- GortunNET reveals on YouTube: “For me, many new features come too late, and I don’t like some of the changes that are now in place at all.”
- jerasco6202 praises on YouTube: “As always, a great work by Entenburg. Names problems objectively and criticizes fairly. I fully agree.”
- EiterPommes wants to know on YouTube: “I am a returning player and have to say that I am really enjoying the game at the moment, 🙂 I’ve been working on the leveling phase for days and haven’t reached the maximum level yet – how did you manage to do it so quickly?”
From the perspective of MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz, New World Aeternum also had to struggle with another point: the release timing, to be precise. You can find his analysis on this here: Aeternum was supposed to bring significant momentum to the MMORPG New World, but Amazon Games made a predictable mistake
