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• New World Aeternum Season 9 Raid Tank Build: What Weapons Should You Prepare?

  New World Aeternum's updates have become more frequent since the new Director. Season 9 will be released a bit sooner, and Season 10 will arrive in early October. However, it's still a bit premature to talk about Season 10 now, as you still have a month to enjoy Season 9.

  As you know, tanks are incredibly versatile in PvE, so having a tank in a raid significantly reduces the difficulty. Here's a tank build suitable for current raids.

  

  Weapon Selection

  Since the first two boss teams in Hive of Gorgons raid usually have melee teammates providing armor penetration, use a more defensive greatsword. The final boss team typically becomes a ranged DPS and lacks armor penetration, so switch to a war hammer to provide your own armor penetration. Since the healers are also ranged, you'll receive more healing.

  While it's recommended to have a variety of weapons, if you don't have New World coins to upgrade to the best gear, there are many alternatives below.

  • Primary Weapon: The sword and shield is the core weapon of the build, which can provide a Leadership buff and primary tanking abilities.

  Sword And Shield Skills

  • Upheaval
  • Shield Rush
  • Defender's Resolve
  • Leadership (Optional)

  Best Sword: Hoplite Longsword

  • 64 Base Damage
  • 7.0% Critical Hit Chance
  • 1.30 Critical Damage Multiplier
  • 36.0 Block Stamina Damage
  • 36.0 Stagger Damage
  • 22% Block Stability
  • Refreshing Move: Light and heavy attacks reduce your active weapon cooldown (0.2s cooldown).
  • Trenchant Rend: Heavy melee attacks inflict a 7-second Rend effect, reducing the target's armor by 16% (10s cooldown).

  Second Best Sword: Taiyi Longsword

  • 64 Base Damage
  • 7.0% Critical Hit Chance
  • 1.30 Critical Damage Multiplier
  • 36.0 Block Stamina Damage
  • 36.0 Stagger Damage
  • 22% Block Stability
  • (Also Refreshing Move and Trenchant Rend)

  Best Shield

  You'll need two tower shields, one with Slash Shield Ward perk and one with Nature Shield Ward perk. Additionally, your tower shield should have Sturdy and Fortifying Shield Rush. Note that the item level of the shield is not important. If your New World Aeternum coins budget is tight, you can even use an item level 600+ shield. Recommended tower shields include:

  Tall Duneborn Shield

  • 56 Base Damage
  • 7.0% Critical Hit Chance
  • 1.30 Critical Damage Multiplier
  • 42.0 Block Stamina Damage
  • 42.0 Stagger Damage
  • 145.2 Armor Rating - Elemental
  • 145.2 Armor Rating - Physical
  • 50% Block Stability
  • Fortifying Shield Rush: After hitting a target with a Shield Rush, gain Fortify, increasing Armor by 35%.
  • Sturdy: Damage taken while blocking is 90% of Stamina.

  Hoplite Tower Shield

  • 56 Base Damage
  • 7.0% Critical Hit Chance
  • 1.30 Critical Damage Multiplier
  • 42.0 Block Stamina Damage
  • 42.0 Stagger Damage
  • 148.9 Armor Rating - Elemental
  • 148.9 Armor Rating - Physical
  • 50% Block Stability
  • Enchanted Ward: Light and heavy attacks deal less damage to you.
  • Sturdy: Stamina damage taken while blocking is 90% of your target's damage.

  Secondary Weapon

  • Optional Weapons: Hoplite Greatsword and Duneborn Tusk

  The first choice for a secondary weapon is the greatsword, which is primarily used for defense and taunting bosses during the first two bosses of Hive of Gorgons Raid. It's also best to equip your greatsword with Energizing Counter perk, which increases your stamina regeneration during combat.

  Greatsword Skills

  • Calamity Counter
  • Roaring Rupture
  • Relentless Rush

  Secondary Weapon (Final Boss)

  Choice Weapons: Duneborn Maul, Hoplite Warhammer, or Azoth Crystal War Hammer.

  For the war hammer set against the final boss, you'll want to equip your war hammer with Sundering Shockwave perk, which reduces the target's armor by 11% to 15%.

  Warhammer Skills:

  • Armor Breaker
  • Shockwave
  • Clear Out

  Gear

  For armor, your top choice is Hoplite Heavy Set, and be sure to get Enchanted Ward and Health perks. If you don't have these, you can also opt for Azoth Crystal or other types of heavy gear. These take significantly less New World Aeternum coins than Hoplite Heavy Set, but the actual effectiveness isn't significantly different.

  Your best artifact is undoubtedly Void Darkplate, which grants a 20% armor boost. However, if you don't already have it, any other gear that makes you more tanky will do.

  Finally, you'll want to equip all your gear with Onyxes to increase physical defense, and all your weapons with Carnelians to attract boss aggro.

  Jewelry

  During the insurance period, you'll need three necklaces. These can be the same necklace, but they'll need different Perks for each boss:

  • Strike Protection (against Echidna)
  • Slash Protection (against Typhon)
  • Nature Protection (against the final boss)

  It's best if all three necklaces have Life Perks, such as Lifering Amulet, Orrupt Progenitor Amulet, or Azoth Battery.

  For rings, we recommend Slash Damage Perk, Hearty Perk, and Leeching Perk.

  Your earrings must have Despised perk for increased aggro and Regenerating perk for passive health regeneration.

  How To Play Tank?

  Although you're a tank, you shouldn't just take all the damage. Instead, learn to dodge and use Grit to absorb damage, and familiarize yourself with the boss's attack patterns.

  You'll also need a teammate to apply the weaken debuff to the boss, which will greatly reduce the pressure on you.

  Remember to hold aggro and keep the boss's front facing you, allowing your teammates to attack from behind safely. Avoid frequent movement.

  This is the outline of the raids Tank build. Since you need more weapons, you'll need a lot of New World Coins to complete this build, but this will also allow you to handle various situations with ease, making the raid effortless.

• New World Aeternum Season 9 Most Valuable Items: How To Get Them?

  What are the most valuable items in New World Aeternum? Well, you might think of artifacts or rare items. They're certainly valuable and indispensable for any player striving for power.

  But in an MMO, once you've achieved power, you'll want other things, like furniture and cosmetic items. Once you've reached a certain point in your power pursuit, you might not understand why these items are worth tens of thousands of New World Aeternum coins. But whales love these items. Their greatest strength lies in their rarity, which serves as a symbol of their status.

  

  Valuable Items

  No.1 Goldfish In Porcelain Bowl

  Goldfish in Porcelain Bowl is a decorative item that can be placed in a player's house, or a Tier 4 epic house item. It's an open-air porcelain fish bowl placed in a room. It looks unremarkable, but it's worth hundreds of thousands of New World coins on the market.

  You need to go to the Imperial Shrine, which is located in the lower left corner of Ebonscale Reach. You need to farm for Elite Supply Chests and Elite Ancient Chests. These chests refresh every 23 hours, so you can only open them once a day. Goldfish in Porcelain Bowl has an incredibly low chance of being found, and you might have to open hundreds of chests to get one.

  No.2 Bonsai Centerpiece

  Bonsai Centerpiece is also a Tier 4 epic item, but its value is slightly lower than Goldfish in Porcelain Bowl. Its acquisition method is similar, but the chance is slightly higher, but definitely no more than 1%, and should probably be less than 0.5%.

  No.3 Tea Serving Set

  This is also a House item, and its origin is the same as the other two House items. Goldfish in Porcelain Bowl, Bonsai Centerpiece, and Tea Serving Set will transform your house into an ancient oriental villa, making everyone know you're a whale who can easily spend millions of New World coins.

  No.4 Glass Weapon Transmogs

  Furniture is the most insane item in New World Aeternum, and the value of items outside of it plummets.

  Glass Weapon Transmogs make your weapons look like glass, which is pretty cool. Many weapons in New World Aeternum have corresponding Glass Weapon Transmogs, but not all do. The value of each Glass Weapon Transmog varies. For example, the transmog value of a greatsword is very high, almost as high as a Tea Serving Set. The method of obtaining a Glass Weapon Transmog is also different for each weapon.

  No.5 Gorgonite Schematics

  Gorgonite Schematics are essential for crafting artifacts. Gorgonite gear is very useful in artifacts and is one of the endgame items for many builds. You have to defeat the final boss of Hive of Gorgons raid (weekly raid) to have a low chance of dropping Gorgonite Schematics. Gorgonite Schematics are divided into weapon and armor schematics, with weapons generally being much more valuable, reaching around hundreds of thousands of coins.

  No.6. Canarios: Guitar Sheet Music

  Music sheets are also quite valuable, which you might not expect, but for a full collector, not having something is a real pain in the ass.

  Canarios: Guitar Sheet Music is a sheet music that can only be obtained in Canary Mine area of Everfall by killing monsters named Canary or looting small chests (with an extremely low chance). It can also be sold, and its value is around tens of thousands of coins.

  No.7 Soulwarden's Journey: Guitar Sheet Music

  Soulwarden's Journey: Guitar Sheet Music is also a sheet music that can be obtained in Chason Steep and Alioth areas by killing monsters or looting chests (with an extremely low chance).

  Farming Tips

  Increasing Luck

  Many item drops (especially minerals and chest loot) have Luck requirements. You can increase your chances of obtaining rare items by increasing the level of the corresponding gathering skill (+10 Luck per level), wearing equipment that increases Luck, eating Luck-boosting food, and using Luck trophies.

  Farm Daily

  Many rare items have a very low drop rate, requiring consistent and repetitive farming. Incorporate this into your daily gameplay cycle, and you might find unexpected surprises.

  Use Tools

  Since the drop locations of various rare items are not fixed, using tools such as websites to find out how to obtain them can save you a lot of time. You can also find detailed information on how to obtain many items, their drop sources, and their current market value.

  Follow Events

  Seasonal events in the game are great opportunities to earn limited rewards and tokens, so be sure to participate regularly.

  Team Up With Friends

  High-value items like Gorgonite Schematics require challenging raids, so finding a consistent and reliable team greatly increases your chances of success.

  These are just a few of the high-value items in New World Aeternum. Some event items are also quite valuable. So, if you want to become a whale, bet heavily on these high-value items. If you're lucky, your backpack could be filled with millions of New World Aeternum coins.

• New World Aeternum Season 9 Crescent Wave PvE Build: How To Craft It?

  While every mechanic or seasonal content in New World Aeternum will eventually be fully explored, you can always craft new builds by combining countless skills, gear, and perks, boosting your combat power while also having extra fun.

  More importantly, as you know, Season 9 introduces a plethora of artifacts to the game, further enriching your build crafting options. With that in mind, this time we’re introducing Crescent Wave PvE Build based on Crescent’s Wave.

  

  Reliable Weapons

  First and foremost, Crescent’s Wave is undoubtedly essential. As a greatsword artifact, the key to its effectiveness throughout the build lies in one of its effects, Crescent Wave.

  This effect launches a projectile forward from your heavy attack when your health is above 50%, dealing 150% weapon damage to enemies. This effect also reduces your melee heavy attack damage by 50%, and each wave consumes 20 mana.

  Additionally, it’s recommended to add an Opal to this weapon. This will grant Crescent’s Wave an additional 12% damage when your health bar is below full.

  For your offhand weapon, we recommend adding the hatchet, one of the most powerful damage-focused weapons in New World Aeternum PvE. It’s also highly forgiving and easy to play, making it a great way to level up quickly in PvE.

  Best Perks

  Perks in New World are special effects that can be attached to gear, granting additional benefits, such as Enchanted Ward for reduced damage, Refreshing for reduced skill cooldowns, and Health for increased vitality.

  Equipping an Artifact grants you exclusive perks. Whether you’re looking to boost your build’s damage, survivability, or utility, perks are essential.

  For Crescent Wave PvE build, Vicious perk is the first choice. It increases your critical damage by 7.3% and is compatible with a wide range of gear types.

  Another powerful perk is Keen Berserk, which has different effects depending on the weapon you equip:

  • Hatchet: Gain +21% critical chance and +21% critical damage while in Berserk.
  • Other Weapons: Gain +13% critical chance and +13% critical damage while in Berserk.

  This perk obviously synergies perfectly with your off-hand weapon, the hatchet, allowing you to deal even more damage while in Berserk.

  However, it’s recommended to use the hatchet only after you’ve depleted mana in greatsword Crescent’s Wave to maximize Keen Berserk’s effectiveness.

  Weapon Perks

  In addition to the perks mentioned above, you should also add several other weapon perks. These perks can provide bonuses like direct damage boosts, critical hits, and specific skill effects. The choice depends on your weapon and combat style.

  The following weapon perks are worth acquiring for this build:

  • Skyward Slash: Deals 50% weapon damage and grants two stacks of 5% Rend for 10 seconds.
  • Relentless Freedom: When equipped with a Greatsword, removes roots and slows, and increases the critical strike chance of Relentless Rush by 20%.

  How To Choose Heartrunes?

  Heartrunes, also known as Heartgem runes in the game, are a system of ultimate abilities that grant you additional powerful effects in combat. Heartrunes come in three tiers: minor, major, and legendary. You can upgrade lower-tier runes at the stonecutting table.

  Runes typically drop when farming New World coins in Expeditions, or you can craft them yourself. To activate a rune, equip it in your inventory, charge it by dealing damage, and then activate it by pressing the designated hotkey.

  For this build, we recommend starting with Cut Pristine Moonstone. Applying this to any gem-socketed gear grants one of the following effects:

  • Exhilarate IV: +20% damage while all your active weapon abilities are on cooldown.
  • Slash Ward IV: +4.8% slash damage absorption.

  Another great rune, or gem (whatever you want to call it), is Major Heartrune of Detonate. It charges you for 3 seconds, then explodes, dealing 100% Heartrunes damage to targets within a 5-meter radius.

  Also, if you have the stamina to spare, I recommend equipping Brutal Heartrune of Fire Storm. It unleashes a tornado of fire that deals 100% Heartrunes damage and burns all targets it hits.

  In addition, this burning effect deals an additional 30% Heartrunes damage per second for 6 seconds, and grants 10% buff to allies within range.

  Best Armor Choices

  For any build, simply having a lethal weapon isn’t enough. Unless it’s truly powerful enough to deliver a one-hit kill on a boss, you need reliable armor to survive.

  For this reason, we recommend starting with light armor for this build, which provides increased speed, mobility, and attack damage, as well as a 15% damage bonus - Attuned Leather Pants are a good option.

  Next, you’ll want to pair it with medium gloves and light chest armor. Overall, Crescent Wave PvE build requires you to keep your gear as light as possible to attack and dodge more quickly.

  Bring Plenty Of Potions

  Although potions in the game are consumable items that only provide short-term benefits, they can be a game-changer in a crucial moment.

  Given the nature of the build, we recommend carrying as many mana potions and shield-infusing potions as possible - they increase armor by 50% for the next three attacks. Health potions are also essential.

  That’s all for this article. If you’ve already obtained Crescent’s Wave artifact but don’t know how to use it, try following our builds crafting guide!

• New World Aeternum Season 9 (5 Best Builds For Both PvE And PvP)

  If you want to earn more currency and items in New World Aeternum Season 9 to help power up your character and experience more intense combat, you need to participate in both PvE and PvP modes as frequently as possible - neither is indispensable.

  To win combat quickly and efficiently, most MMORPGs require you to craft and utilize reliable builds, and New World is no exception. However, due to different mechanics, using the same build in both PvE and PvP modes can be challenging.

  Frankly, if you frequently switch between different playstyles, constantly switching builds can be quite cumbersome.

  Based on this, we'll recommend five New World Aeternum Season 9 builds that are suitable for both PvE and PvP, while accommodating as many differences as possible.

  

  1. Bow Musket Build

  In general, this build is suitable for ranged DPS players who can be used in both PvE and PvP, allowing you to interrupt attacks from distant enemies and deal damage to them.

  The bow provides long-range AoE damage and enhanced mobility, while the musket delivers powerful suppression against single enemies at long range. You can switch weapons as needed.

  Since this build allows you to maintain a distance from enemies, you should focus on increasing its damage rather than survivability. To this end, it's recommended to equip light armor for maximum damage and reliable evasion.

  If you want better gear, you can, but you'll need to earn enough New World coins by completing more quests - fortunately, the benefits from coins or better gear will be long term.

  As for stats, 25 strength, 350 agility, 150-200 intelligence, and 100 constitution are generally the best combination for this build. It's worth noting that sufficient constitution allows you to deal damage even while dead.

  For a more refined weapon build, you should prioritize your bow for maximum damage at a fixed range while ensuring your musket provides consistent single-target damage.

  2. Fire Staff Rapier Build

  This build is ideal for melee combat, relying on its high mobility for quick attacks and escapes, along with reliable stamina. It's particularly useful for evading unexpected situations in PvP or high-difficulty expeditions.

  The rapier is useful for maximizing your chances of defeating stubborn healers or powerful bosses, while the fire staff not only delivers damage at range with its high critical hit chance, but also offers substantial melee skills.

  For gear selection, both light and medium armor are worth considering. The ultimate choice depends on whether you're willing to sacrifice survivability for increased damage.

  If you choose medium armor for safety, it's best to prioritize high agility and intelligence to minimize cooldowns and maintain your survivability.

  When choosing skills based on the fire staff and rapier, the fire staff should prioritize area-of-effect damage, while the rapier should focus on improving quick attacks and defense.

  3. Greatsword Great Axe Build

  By combining the greatsword and great axe, this build can devastate most enemies within melee range and can capture and kill them through mobility or disruption-based abilities.

  Based on this, you can first restrict the enemy's movement to block their attacks, then capture and lock onto them with the great axe, and then utilize the greatsword for sufficient burst damage.

  As for gear, medium armor helps this build strike a balance between damage output and survivability. Stat allocation should prioritize strength and agility.

  4. Life Staff Void Gauntlet Build

  This build is unique on this list because it focuses on healing. As one of the primary healing weapons in New World Aeternum, the life staff can provide additional healing support when paired with Void Gauntlet.

  More specifically, this build is best suited for team PvE and PvP combat, allowing you to deal considerable damage while also providing healing to your teammates.

  To further enhance your build's effectiveness, it's recommended that you prioritize gear that offers reliable healing and survivability. After all, your death as a healer will cause significant damage to your team.

  As for stat allocation, intelligence, focus, and constitution are more important for healing roles. They can help boost your healing while maintaining a relatively solid defense, allowing you to survive the fight to the end.

  5. Bow Rapier Build

  This build offers the highest damage and mobility potential in the game, allowing you to stack high burst damage. Furthermore, you can use skills for defense and time your attacks or evasions.

  More specifically, in combat, this build allows you to deal sustained ranged damage with your bow skills, while the rapier helps enhance your mobility while also providing a range of defensive abilities and passive skills to mitigate damage.

  More Item Options

  In addition to the various weapons and armor already mentioned, we recommend that you gem your gear appropriately when utilizing the above builds.

  For example, adding elemental or physical gems to weapons can convert some of their damage output to other types, making it easier to defeat enemies with corresponding weaknesses.

  The same applies to armor - adding gems can provide better protection against enemies with specific elemental types. Currently available gems and their functions are:

  • Elemental Gems
  • Physical Gems
  • General Protection: Opal, Diamond
  • Specific Damage Types: Ruby, Sapphire, Jasper, Moonstone, and Turquoise

  These are the five recommended builds for this article. To find out which build is best for you, craft each one and test its effectiveness in real-world combat! Have fun!

• New World Aeternum Season 9 Azoth Salt Farming Guide: How To Quickly Earn PvP Currency By Crafting Infused Alkahest?

  New World Aeternum Season 9, like previous releases, adds several new artifacts to the game, giving players more options for optimizing their builds. Obtaining these Artifacts is also very simple, just keep advancing your PvP Reward Track progress.

  Have you unlocked all the artifacts yet? Or do you see those shiny artifacts just around the corner but lack Azoth Salt to redeem them? Apparently, Azoth Salt is the PvP currency that players used to unlock corresponding PvP track rewards.

  Here, we'll reveal the best ways to farm this Azoth Salt PvP currency to help you quickly unlock all available artifacts and valuable items in the Reward Track.

  

  Preparation

  The primary method we'll use here is Infused Alkahest crafting, but it might be a bit different than you might expect.

  Reaching The Relevant Levels

  First, you need to reach Arcana Level 100 to begin crafting, and you'll also need a tier 5 Camp. Therefore, if you're at a lower level, you may need to wait a while or start stockpiling the resources you need until your Camp reaches the maximum level.

  Gathering Crafting Materials

  Next, you'll need to acquire a large amount of Hyssop, Water, and Azoth Water. Depending on your server, these items can be quite expensive, so be sure to monitor price trends and try to acquire as many of them as possible at the lowest possible prices to save some New World coins.

  Azoth Water is often the most expensive, so if you really want to save money, it's recommended to farm it yourself. The best place to farm Azoth Water is generally considered the Reekwater area, specifically near Forecastle Drift, following the circular path around the moat in the World Dungeon.

  Please keep in mind the Infused Alkahest crafting ratio when gathering your materials: 10 Hyssop : 1 Water : 1 Azoth Water. Because you'll be performing these operations frequently, the quantity and ratio of materials will be a key factor in your returns.

  A quick tip: You can always keep water in the consumable slot of your gear sets until you need it to save inventory weight.

  Bags

  Speaking of materials, you should also prepare three bags with Town Loyalty perk.

  I know the word "bags" can be overwhelming, as they're often quite expensive. But don't worry, you don't need top-tier bags. You can easily spend a bit of money to get three regular bags with these perks from the market, as the difference between the highest gear score bags and lower-tier bags is only a few percentage points.

  So, we've tried to keep each bag costing no more than 4,000 New World coins and aim to get the 13% Standing Bonus on each bag.

  Of course, you can do this for much less if you prefer. Even if these items aren't as good as your main bag, you can still add them when you're ready to use this method to get the extra bonus. Because their value accumulates dramatically over the long term and is well worth the money.

  Buffs

  Now that you have all the materials, bags, and your Arcana is at least level 100, you can start buffing.

  Before you begin crafting, there are some key things to keep in mind.

  First, make sure your faction has unlocked Weaver's Fen Settlement, Weaver's Fen Fort. This grants you a 10% Refining Yield bonus, which will pay off significantly in the long run.

  Next, you need to look for Territorial Triumph music buff to gain a 30% Territory Standing Bonus. This buff unlocks at level 5 music. So, even if you hate this skill and never use it, you can still accumulate XP by playing a few random songs before you start to unlock it and then apply the buff to your character.

  You can earn many of these buffs in the free Season Pass, so to maximize the efficiency and benefits of this method, keep them. If you don't have it, you can also unlock it in the Marks of Fortune shop.

  Other Tips

  Finally, before you start crafting, it's crucial to confirm your PvP Flag. This is because if you don't wait until the timer runs out before crafting, you won't be able to obtain Azoth Salt.

  Another reminder: If you're one of the lucky few who manages to obtain some Trophy of Dominance (Territory), having it at home can be very helpful, as it will increase your Territory Standing by 25%.

  However, this loot is difficult to obtain. So, if you're a new or casual player, don't worry about it.

  

  Crafting

  Okay, now that you're fully buffed, you can start crafting.

  Head to Territory you most want to upgrade, walk far enough from town, and build and place your camp. Don't forget to bring your five Green Wood and one Flint, as walking back to get them can be a hassle, especially when carrying heavy items out of the city gates.

  Once your camp is set up and your buffs are maxed out, double-check that your PvP timer has ended and you're marked, then start crafting.

  At your camp, click the crafting button and scroll down to Infused Alkahest. You can experiment with how many you craft at once, but I find around 200 is the sweet spot. So, craft 200, then 200, and repeat the process over and over again.

  You'll find that every few times you do this, you'll be rewarded with 1650 Azoth Salt and a significant amount of Territory Standing.

  As you increase Territory Standing and collect Azoth Salt, it's worth adjusting your Standing bonus from time to time, as this will significantly speed up the process.

  But you might be wondering why you should go to your camp to craft instead of going directly to Arcane Repository in town. There are two reasons for this: first, your camp has no taxes, which will save you more coins; second, if you don't have the PvP Flag enabled, you won't receive any Azoth Salt, as you can't activate the PvP Flag in town. Therefore, if you choose to craft in town, you're essentially wasting free resources.

  In short, this is the best way to farm Azoth Salt in New World Season 9. You can quickly level up the PvP reward track and unlock the corresponding artifacts without engaging in PvP!

• New World Aeternum Season 9 Is Still Worth Trying In 2025

  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.