Amazon show off new Zones and Expeditions in New World Deep Dive

New World's Deep Dive brought us a closer look at new zones, PvE content, and reaffirms their microtransaction model

New World Deep Dive
Amazon Games Studio held a Deep Dive for New Worlds during the Summer Game Fest. Image via AGS.

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During the Summer Game Fest, Amazon Games Studios revealed a New World Deep Dive, showing what they have been up to since their blog posts. The game seems to have come a long way, telling more about the five-player PvE content, the world, updated content and more.

Expeditions

Amrine Expedition
Amrine is one of the Expeditions players can do as part of 5-player PvE Content. Image via Amazon Games Studio.

Expeditions are New World’s new PvE gameplay experience, creating instanced content for five players to experience together. At launch, there will be six Expeditions through Aeternum, each with different level and gear requirements to complete. Also, Amazon Games confirmed in the New World Deep Dive that these Expeditions will require a tank, healer, and three DPS to complete them, which follows the same pattern as World of Warcraft’s dungeon system.

So far, Amazon only revealed three Expeditions in detail.

  • Amrine Excavation -Archaeology themed Expedition, where players are tasked with finding the missing archaeologist team in their dig site.
  • Dynasty Shipyard – A notable Villain on Aeternum named the Empress is building a fleet that could change the balance of power on Aeternum and the world. The Shipyard is one of the notable end game Expeditions in New World.
  • Garden of Genesis – An angry Earth Garden with mysterious blight affecting plant-based life. Player’s are tasked with working out the source of blight and stopping the raging plants that come with it.

The World

The World of Aeternum continues to expand. While we knew the Reekwater biome and the Ebonscale Ridge are content from previous blog posts, the two zones got a greater look in the New World Deep Dive.

One of the major villains of New World is the Siren Queen, who now controls Reekwater. The zone is a former fishing village site filled with swamps and other wildlife. However, the territory seems to have come to a disaster, and now there are Siren Queen troops in the area, along with wandering enemies like the undead.

As for Ebonslace Reach, the zone is the home to the Empress, a hostile named character, which I building up a fleet to take back her home. The EMpress is a complex character who escaped the wrath of her brother’s during a period of political unrest. However, since stumbling on Aeternum, she has managed to secure the power of the Corruption and intends to rule Aeternum and invade her homeland.

Furthermore, the red-eyed lady from the 2019 New World trailer made an appearance. Isabella is her name, and she seems to play a major role in Aeternum’s corruption storyline. Furthermore, Amazon makes her seem like the biggest threat to Aternum.

NPCs

With the two new end game zones, the New World Deep Dive details more on the NPC affiliations in the game. So far, there are

  • The Ancients –  Aeternum once was the home of an ancient civilization, whose ruins are found on the map. The faction represents all those lost to time and those that still operate on their side.
  • The Corrupted – Those who came to Aeternum seeking eternal life have found themselves taking the corruption, turning them red with mystical energy and hostile to everyone else there.
  • The Lost – Wandering Zombies, Ghouls, Ghosts and other death-themed NPCS wander Aeternum, trapped in a state between life and death.
  • Angry Earth- forces allied with Mother Nature herself. Those plant-based lives are the natural defences of Aeternum, hostile to those seeking to make Aeternum their base for power.

Updated Systems

The New World Deep Dive featured a brief look at Weapons crafting and more, detailing the new features and updated systems.

Weapons

New Wold Weapon Mastery Tree
A look at the Talent trees associated with Weapon Mastery. Image via Amazon Games Studio.

New World’s weapon system fits into the classes gameplay. There are 11 weapons available at launch, with the new one being an Ice Gauntlet. The Ice Gauntlet is an ice-themed magical weapon, which uses ice powers to defeat enemies.

Furthermore, the developers mention that the weapon levelling process has changed, with changed weapon talent trees, abilities, and more for balance. They didn’t go into too much detail but showed a picture of a weapon’s skill tree in the video.

Spawning

New World Deep Dive mention the starting process of the game had changed. While they didn’t precisely say what has happened, there were murmurs of an improved starting experience, improving quest competition and reducing the bottleneck in the starting zone.

Crafting

Crafting is now a significant player in New World, with player’s looking to become a known server crafter getting the opportunity to do so. As it stands, New World’s various crafting jobs can make end game like gear. This is one way to make end game quality items ready to do Expeditions PvP and other content.

Microtransactions

After the debacle relating to the proposed microtransaction boosts, New World’s deep dive featured a small segment reaffirming the in-game store will only feature cosmetics. In a previous blog post, they said that the in-game shop would feature skins akin to skins achievable through in-game methods. Also, the blog post states they were not to vastly outshine those in the game. Furthermore, they have said that as the game changes over the years, the store may change.

Unfortunately, Amazon’s Deep Dive seems a bit vaguer than their promise to keep it cosmetics only until 2022, but it does sound like the idea of catch-up services could come into effect. Only time will tell what that means.

That is all from the New World Deep Dive. Those interested can get Closed Alpha access on July 30 by signing up or pre-ordering the game. Alternatively, the game launches on August 31st, shortly after the Crowfall MMO launch.