Events

After Crucible’s curious ‘un-releasing’ last month, Amazon has pushed back its ambitious MMO New World to an unspecified date in Spring 2021.

  • Amazon Game Studios has delayed the launch of New World to Spring 2021.
  • The development team will use to added time to flesh out the games content and integrate changes based on player feedback.
  • Free-to-play shooter Crucible flopped at launch and was un-released last month.

Amazon famed for its stranglehold on the online retail space is aiming to make a splash in the gaming world. The road to rubbing shoulders with big-name developers whove been in the game for over three decades has been a bumpy one so far.
To date, Amazons strategy consists of throwing the spoils of its retail dominance at two major AAA titles Crucible and New World. In recent weeks, those plans have unfurled in curious fashion, not least in Crucibles case.
Crucible Unreleased
In what was a rare move, Amazon un-released the free-to-play team-based shooter last month the game is returning to closed beta. Back to the drawing board for the shooter with an eye on providing the best possible experience for our players as we continue to make the game better as Amazon Games Studios subsidiary and Crucible developer Relentless Studios explains.
Why? A devastatingly low player base and lukewarm critical response. And more tellingly, Twitch viewership contemporary gamings most readily available metric of success barely in the double digits. Crucible flopped. Hard.
The prospects for New World, the other tentpole title of Amazons two-pronged gaming debut, were markedly better until the latest news from Amazon Game Studios Orange Country development team.
New World Delayed (Again)
Studio director Rich Lawrence announced that the MMOs release is being delayed once again following an initial pandemic-linked release date rejig.
Amazon is pushing New Worlds scheduled Aug. 25 launch to Spring 2021. Lawrence explains in an upbeat dev diary the reason behind the decision, citing a content offering erring on the lighter side players want more of the game based on feedback from the New World alpha.
We want our players to feel completely immersed in the game, and know that our studio stands for quality and lasting gameplay you can trust and that means added time to get things where we want them before we fully release.
As a result, we will be changing our launch date and correspondingly, our final beta test to spring 2021. We dont make the decision lightly, and we have urgency about getting the game to you as quickly as possible at the best quality with some additions that will make the experience even better.
Were passionate about the game weve been making and want to add more features and content before we share it with a wider audience.
New World is an ambitious project, and not least because of the genre Amazon is tackling. MMOs heyday dates back well over a decade to the mid-2000s; the market now saturated with as many legacy behemoths of the ilk of World of Warcraft as ill-advised newcomers. Calling New World uninspired is a fair assessment and a familiar feature list attests to that. The official web site reads like those of countless other MMOs.
Amazons New World suffers yet another delay. | Source: Amazon Game Studios
Nevertheless, Amazon appears convinced its take on the established formula of chucking droves of players into a fantasy sandbox presents enough to satisfy jaded genre veterans.
A Prudent Approach
There may be some cosmic justice to Bezos ultra-corp stumbling to pierce into gaming, notably after countless reports and testimonials of inhumane warehouse working conditions.
Yet, we have to commend Amazons studios swallowing their pride and taking the time to craft better games from the outset even when that means bearing the brunt of the jests that follow un-releasing a game. That kind of humility is a rare virtue among publishers and developers with the deepest pockets.
The industry bleeds tales of developers doggedly sticking by mangled games, seemingly cupping their ears to criticism. EA and DICEs Battlefield V serves as a perfect example of what happens when blindly charging forward with a fundamentally flawed game. The result? A painful near two-year-long downward spiral that saw DICE give up on the game last month.
A running theme nestled in the official announcements concerning both Crucible and New World is a recognition of the value found in player feedback. And, not just hearing, but acting on it with alacrity. If such an approach means we have to wait longer for New World and a revamped permutation of Crucible, its a trade-off that strikes me as worthwhile.
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