New World Aeternum Season 9 Is Still Worth Trying In 2025
Posted: Aug 22, 2025 Views: 20
New World was released in September 2021 and renamed New World Aeternum in 2024. It's now in its ninth season and is approaching its fourth anniversary.
At its peak, New World Aeternum boasted 910,000 online players, but its average daily player count has now dropped to around 10,000(only in Steam). New World Aeternum may never return to its peak. What has brought this supposedly "new-age MMO" to its current state? After nine seasons, does it still hold appeal to players?
A Disastrous Start
Compared to other games, New World enjoyed ample development funding and was highly anticipated by players before its release. Consequently, upon its 2021 release, it boasted hundreds of thousands of players and enjoyed immense popularity. However, two months after its release, the number of players plummeted, dropping to less than one-tenth of its peak.
New World's development team was actually quite impressive, having recruited numerous established game studios, including those behind the hits EverQuest and Portal, as well as executives from major game developers. They also had ample funding pre-production, making the game's preparations quite thorough.
However, the failures of the previous two games had left the company extremely anxious, ultimately delivering a flawed half-finished product to players.
Numerous issues soon emerged after the game launched, most notably instances of the game freezing up and even crashing when using a 3090 graphics card. Ultimately, the company blamed the issue on the hardware.
New World then continued to engage in outrageous operations with the operator, disregarding player studios and even considering the rare deflationary market conditions of MMOs as normal.
If these weren't enough, the game's numerous and insidious bugs left players feeling completely uneasy. Bugs like New World coins farming bug and the Power-Up bug, which severely impacted the gameplay experience, were unacceptable to players, yet New World officials failed to promptly address them.
It can be argued that despite New World's impressive development team, their lack of MMO development experience led to a disastrous start.
Reinventing New World Aeternum
In 2024, New World Aeternum was released on Xbox and PlayStation platforms, saving this nearly forgotten MMO. This was because of the lack of other MMO PPGs on consoles, and the fact that New World Aeternum was cross-platform, meaning players could play with PC and Xbox players. This move brought the game back into the spotlight.
Console players could also play the game for free through PlayStation Plus. Therefore, while the fluctuation in PC players may have been minor, the real growth in player base since 2024 has actually been on consoles.
Improved Gameplay
New World Aeternum has many players who have logged thousands of hours, demonstrating its appeal. It fully incorporates many of the strengths of open-world games and offers significantly greater freedom of play than traditional MMOs, particularly its highly flexible weapon mastery system.
Without the distinct classes of traditional MMOs, New World Aeternum's builds are uniquely differentiated based on the weapons used and their proficiency. Furthermore, New World Aeternum action system is more sophisticated than other MMOs. Although it considers itself an APRG, it remains firmly within the traditional MMO framework. New World's precise positioning is that of an open-world online MMO.
Many aspects of the game have been refined compared to its initial launch. For example, new players can choose their starting archetype, but they can still freely switch weapons to adapt their playstyle.
PvP
PvP has always been a high-risk, high-reward game. You can stake out points of interest, loot New World Aeternum coins, and face the siege of other players. The free-for-all PvP areas have been reworked, with a new mechanism to prevent players from grouping up, including a proximity debuff. Players must disperse to avoid damage from teammates, and remaining close together for extended periods will incur the debuff.
Season 9 added a second Outpost Rush map and a new Capture the Flag mode. Cross-server support has been implemented across arenas, dungeons, and OPR, significantly reducing queue times and improving the PvP experience.
PvE
New World Aeternum's end-game content isn't extensive, but they're working on improving it. They've added end-game PvE content like Trials and new NPCs and monster types to the open-world areas, up from the original 10 or so.
Compared To Other MMOs
MMOs remain a very popular genre. Well-known MMOs like World of WarCraft, Final Fantasy XIV, and The Elder Scrolls Online seem to have decades of history and have amassed huge player bases.
New World Aeternum isn't without its competitive edge. Compared to other MMOs that focus on story and PVE, New World Aeternum's competitive advantages lie in its superior graphics and high-quality action.
It also incorporates elements from other MMOs to expand its gameplay. For example, its trading skill gameplay and training methods draw inspiration from Final Fantasy XIV. You can earn money using trading skills, or you can first max out your trading skills using New World Aeternum coins.
Is It Worth Playing?
Despite its flaws and historical baggage, the game is worth a try in 2025. If you're an MMO player currently struggling with gaming, looking for a fresh experience, or playing on consoles (where options are limited), it's a splendid choice for you.
Whether it's worth becoming your primary MMO remains to be seen, but for many console players, it's already a staple.
The game's reputation and historical issues may never be fully repaired, but the potential remains, and it's getting better with each passing season.
In general, not all players will like New World Aeternum, but if you are a heavy PVP enthusiast and obsessed with large-scale positional battles and siege battles, then this game may be tailor made for you.
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