Amazon's MMO New World is being review bombed on Steam after a major relaunch for the game, which will also see it arriving on consoles, was announced last week.
One of the trailers we got to see during last week's Summer Game Fest showcase was for New World: Aeternum, a relaunch of the original 2021 MMO that will also be arriving on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in October.
Aeternum will offer a new raid and a new PvP zone, as well as a number of gameplay improvements including an increased gear score cap, combat tweaks, and "new cinematic storytelling".
If New World's recent reviews on Steam are anything to go by, however, the game's community isn't happy with this relaunch announcement.
The game has garnered an Overwhelmingly Negative rating across 3,543 recent reviews at time of writing, although the overall review score is sitting at "Mixed".
Many recent reviews point to what players consider a neglectful attitude on the part of New World's developers. One reviewer calls the game "abandonware", while another suggests Amazon was merely using PC players as alpha testers for the console release.
Other players point to Amazon telling them to wait until June for a big New World announcement, only for that announcement to fall flat, and still more reviewers suggest the relationship between Amazon and its player base is a fractured one.
Others point to the fact that, as confirmed in a community Q&A post, players will need to buy New World's Rise of the Angry Earth expansion to "fully experience everything New World: Aeternum has to offer".
Some features, however, will be available to New World players who don't buy the expansion, including the revamped main questing experience, certain Expeditions, and quality-of-life updates.
New World launched back in 2021, and to call its launch "rocky" would be an understatement. The game was plagued with several game-breaking glitches and bugs for weeks after its launch, and that's all after the launch of the game was beset by huge queue times; this isn't even New World's first Steam review bomb.
For many, it seems that the fractious relationship between Amazon and its player base that formed during those uneasy early weeks was never fixed or resolved.
We'll have to wait and see if the actual release of Aeternum changes anyone's minds, but it's not looking likely right now. Our very own Robert Scarpinito got to sit down with a preview build of the relaunch, so make sure to check out his thoughts if you want to know what's what.
