Amazon's MMO New World is delayed to spring 2021

Amazon's expedition into game development has hit another bump in the road. Their open-world historical fantasy MMO New World was scheduled for release on August 25th. They've now pushed back to spring of 2021 to take "time to get things where we want them before we fully release."

"With our August 25th launch approaching, we have been scrutinizing our feature list, taking input from our Alpha audience, and listening to what they enjoyed (or didn’t!) about the current game," says studio director Rich Lawrence in their announcement.

"We want to ensure that the most dedicated players have plenty of middle and endgame experiences as they venture through Aeternum," they say.

In order to deliver the content they'll need to support the player base, Amazon Game Studios are pushing back New World's launch and its beta period to spring of next year. "We don't make the decision lightly, and we have urgency about getting the game to you as quickly as possible at the best quality."

I'll admit I've been much less than keen about Amazon's attempt at an MMO right from the jump. The uninspired title New World is reinforced by a painfully standardized list of MMO features and character designs that look like the understudies for Bloodborne. I'm not surprised it's spending a bit longer in the workshop, especially after the launch of their other project Crucible.

Just over a week ago, Amazon's MOBA-style shooter was so poorly received that it retreated from full launch back to beta, which is quite the move. That wasn't so surprising either. Matt says in his Crucible review that "even if the shooting was as sharp as Battlefield’s, I’d probably still chalk Crucible up as an interesting failure."

Here's hoping that the extra half a year or so helps save New World from the same fate. I think we might be stuck with the shiny knights, colonial pirates, and plague doctors though.

Interestingly, Amazon are making the current version of New World available to play for a limited time. Alpha players, those registered for beta, and pre-order customers will all get an invitation to play New World for a limited time starting on its former release date August 25th.

If you don't fall into any of those early-adopter categories, you'll be able to voyage to the New World sometime in spring 2021 when Amazon deem it ready for inhabitants.