New World says no more new content expected

I’ve seen this before and it is my biggest issue about playing MMOs. New World Aeternum posts that there won’t be any more new content after its Season 10 and Nighthaven expansion. The news comes after Amazon made massive layoffs including reduction to about 14,000 corporate workers.

The news sounded like nonsense playground gossip at first when they mentioned New World ending in global chat. Most remained skeptical. But the word spread out like wildfire when players started spamming a news article. Then AGS posted the news. Players and streamers were utterly stunned. I’ve observed three things after New World Aeternum posted the notice:

1. First, the banner image is titled with a “sunset” keyword. An interesting use of the word.
2. Then Amazon Games’ Linkedin page, with 108k followers, has been deactivated.
   Update: Amazon Games Studios is apparently back, specifically in Seattle, Washington.
3. Finally, despite reverting New World Aeternum for purchase, there is an official notice that there will be no more new content on Steam.

New World player count picked up after NightHaven

The Good

Honestly, I want the game to succeed. The game has significantly improved in many areas such as game optimization, quality of life, and content. Temps don’t soar when playing New World. Mounts helped a great deal. New PvP maps and modes, as well as new PvE modes exist for group and solo players.

Nighthaven felt like a fresh breeze that it was hard to log in during the few days it was released. Honestly, it felt like a good time to finish Season 10. Plus there’s a new way to raid with catacombs which we could pull off as you only need a minimum 3 people for it. Gear score was increased to 800 and the level cap to 70.

At the end of it all, Aeternum is a memorable place. I thought that New World has excellent landscape design and environment. And when we played ESO on a segue, the graphics felt lacking. New World allowed for a natural routine to “live” on Aeternum and adventure at the same time on a natural environment. The landscape is not only a backdrop but it serves as your resources to crafting – that is you can chop the trees along your way and so on. New World is a good game as a buy to play MMO.

The Bad

I do have a love and hate relationship with New World.

Although there have been ailing problems such as premium in-store character skins that don’t look appealing. The game feels like it’s an endless grind for gears. New content especially new zones were the big sellers but they tend to fall behind after a month. The problem is keeping players engaged for at least new content to drop. When players do suggest their ideas, the developers do not capitalize on it immediately.

For example, it took two years for mounts to arrive despite players noticing the need for it to optimize gameplay and time. And a new OPR (Outpost Rush PVP) map dropped this September 2025. My gripe would be the lack of interesting looking skins. It felt like the disregard to capitalize what the player demands immediately. And now it’s too late.

There is no other end-game or sandbox gameplay; housing is present but virtually no sense in maintaining one. They could increase the number of trophies and houses so it buffs players more. Have players be able to purchase homes on all settlements and cap the trophies. The lore exists and the story telling did improve but the friendly characters are unremarkable. Honestly, only Thorpe and Isabella are the characters I respect in this game.

New World’s future being unknown on purpose will shut it down sooner

Developers state that New World servers will still be online throughout 2026. And despite it being clear that the game will persist next year, it still sounds ominous. We can imagine server merges until the players shrink into a singularity. With no intention to open servers, the game will slowly shrink out of existence. And when the developers won’t be passionate to keep the servers as open as possible, then what would be the point?

There’s also no indication what will happen after next year whether the MMO will remain in maintenance mode from here out. Or if 2026 is truly its last year. Apparently, it would be a huge ask for a more transparent update. It is emphasized is that there will be no new content: such as no new zones, no next season, and no new skins. The team will post a 6 month notice if they will completely shut down the game.

What makes it frustrating is the game improved a lot. Nighthaven player count peaked 51k according to Steamdb. When things were getting better, Amazon decides to pull the plug. Therefore it shows that this corporate giant doesn’t have the right passion to be a gaming company.

What could help in this situation?

Maintenance Mode

Announcing Maintenance Mode can help. Players want to know if they can still play it beyond 2026. Not knowing whether everything will shut down beyond next year is what will kill it faster. Being able to play it for longer than next year will bring solace to the player base in addition of knowing it’s under maintenance mode.

Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s MOBA was honest and passionate to inform players that HOTS will enter maintenance mode in July 2022. They also gave every player a free legendary mount. Three years later, despite no official announcement of moving out of maintenance mode, developers released new hero skins and mounts. There was no commitment to make new content but the player count maintained a good number that HOTS is slowly making a comeback. It was a good move and completely shutting it down means losing all the IP involved in the game. Imagine losing your heroes, abilities, art, and so on.

In other games, Heroes of Newerth made its announcement of shutting down on December 31, 2021. And the terminated servers on December 31, 2022. But look, Heroes of Newerth is making a comeback.

Look for investors or shift to subscription model

Start looking for new investors somewhere else as it will be a huge loss for the Aeternum IP. Alternatively, start transitioning New World as open source so that people can create private servers. One of my biggest issue is that the lore felt disconnected from the game. Which is a shame because Aeternum is a fascinating setting. As a result, the players don’t feel attached to their “home”. There’s no in-game character to celebrate. Thus there’s nothin else to sell except the game itself.

The true litmus test comes to shifting the whole game into a subscription model instead. If we’re talking about saving an MMO, then subscription model would bring steady funding to run the game.

Start going open-source for Private Servers

I would think that this is would be the noble move. But I doubt it considering the amount of money involved on its development.

To take the corporate product as an open-source game accessible for all. Have other game developers adopt New World of their own. Or release game documentation and assets to for other people to run private servers. And if they can’t that’s the whole point: New World still holds value that it cannot become an open-source and free asset.

Which reveals the dirt and grime: if Amazon keeps the IP in the grave then it will be difficult to support future AGS games. They know it holds value and they don’t want to keep it running. Again, the noble move would be to either sell it or release the documents.

Repackage the game as a singleplayer game

It’s a wild concept. And I admit sounding desperate too.

But they can remove the PvP modes; increase the level cap so that dungeon raids are doable; have an orb that follows players around which can buff, de-buff, and heal; allow players to buy homes on all settlements. And this is an idea that doesn’t involve coop or local area network. I’m taking a page from Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp where a social multiplayer app was turned into a paid complete singleplayer app.

Ending it with single-player

It will be many years before I pick up another MMO. And it’s sad that this is just the nature of MMOs, that their longevity is highly unpredictable. Those that invested a lot of time and money will be upset. Yet some will be indifferent. And there will be those who will think it’s funny. There is always a risk to playing MMOs – the risk of it shutting down. And this is exactly what my cousin and I asked each other before playing New World in September 28, 2021. We thought the game will stay for a long time because it’s Amazon. Yet we didn’t know that Amazon would treat New World like it’s nothing after four years.

Furthermore it’s not even a free to play a game like Maplestory 2. So I will be back to playing singleplayer and coop games for a while.