In 2019 Amazon Game Studios announced that they were going to release a new fantasy MMO called New World in May 2020. That release date has been altered, however, due to the difficulty that the developers have faced because of COVID-19. Amazon Game Studios has given us a new release date of August 25, 2020.
“Like most of you, our entire team has been sequestered as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While we are still making great progress, developing an ambitious MMO like New World remotely has introduced some challenges,” said Amazon Game Studios, “We want to make sure that we have the time needed to make New World the very best it can be for our players. As a result, we’ve chosen to delay the game’s release in order to reach our quality bar as we work remotely for the foreseeable future.”
PCGamer reported that in addition to the announcement of a delayed release date, Amazon Game Studios also released an update for Invasions. Invasions is an event where the forces of the Corruption attack a player-defended fort. Before an invasion takes place—which Team Corruption schedules beforehand—players are given the option to sign up to defend the fort—but you have to be a level 50 or higher. The territory’s leader gets to select 10 players to fight in the siege, with 40 more players assigned at random from the signups.
As players defend the keep, they gain XP, in-game money, and special loot. However, if players fail to repel the army, less XP will be gained, and the land will lose its upgrades, such as crafting locations, keep gates, and fort towers, which weakens the defenses of the area.
Testing has continued on the game and the site is still accepting new signups. Hopefully, Amazon Game Studios and other developers will be able to continue to work in these difficult times.