There is still a part of me that doesn’t believe this happened. New World Aeternum is now in maintenance mode. Just when things were really starting to turn around for the game, Amazon pulled the plug on developing MMORPGs at Amazon Games Studios laying off almost all the MMORPG developers. There will be no more content updates and servers are only expected to stay up another year. What makes this situation truly awful is Amazon did this to focus AGS efforts on creating casual AI games instead.
To say I’m devastated is an understatement. New World felt almost invincible. It had managed to survive very low points (various exploits and bugs) long content droughts and long cycles of low player numbers. Some believed the development of the Lord of the Rings MMO was keeping New World alive, at least until it was ready to launch. No one considered that both games could be axed at the same time.
The developers were listening and communicating and under new leadership, had spent most of 2025 building goodwill with the community. They released long-requested new Outpost Rush Maps and introduced a PvP new mode, Capture the Flag. The Nighthaven update, a more PvE focused update, was the first big update since the leadership change and was a major step in building on the goodwill they had established. And now, when we least expected it, it is all being taken away.
Since the news broke, I have not been able to bring myself to log into the game. Not because I do not see the point in doing so. I would still like to play the game, even if it’s just to ride around and soak in the beautiful scenery. But I just can not do it. I can not bring myself to login and see an empty world devoid of players. To witness a community obliterated. I want to remember the community thriving, I want to remember it happy and hopeful.
AP SE players have been through a lot. It was only a couple of months ago AGS were considering shutting down all the servers in our region. But through mass protest, we saved our region and were able to keep one server, Delos. We felt invincible! Nighthaven’s launch had made the Delos server full and vibrant, we even had queues (no where near to the extent of the NA or EU) and damn it was an incredible feeling! And now it is all gone.
I am going to miss Delos, I regret being too shy to interact with the community.
I honestly believe that New World was on the cusp of it’s renaissance. The recently released Nighthaven update featured an incredible new zone with plenty to explore, a new mostly decent gearing system (needed a couple of tweaks), a new 10-player Raid, procedural Dungeons (Catacombs) and a customisable UI. It was arguably the best update New World ever had and it was only the beginning.
We had so much content to look forward to after Nighthaven too. Daggers, the Reekwater zone uplevel, Crafting Global Storage and yet another new PVP mode (datamined to be Battle Royale). Beyond that, there were two additional Weapons in development, the possibility of Homesteads with Gardening, enhancements to Influence Races, Raid Difficulties and more. The developers were focused on endgame and finally giving the players what they wanted.
The handful of remaining developers recently went ahead and released some content in an unpolished state, to show players what they were working on. Daggers, Crafting Storage and the Reekwater zone rework all got put into the game. Oh what could have been…
Finally, I just want to say thank you to all the developers who worked on New World. You all created something truly special and inspiring. I am heartbroken the game will never get to see its full potential realised. There were times New World frustrated me to no end but there was something special about the game that always brought me back.
I am going to miss Aeternum.
Amazon. We will never forgive and we will never forget.
It took me over 3 weeks to get this out and I’m still not 100% satisfied with how it’s turned out. I rewrote and changed the tone a couple of times. Maybe it’s weird to feel deep loss about a video game, I don’t know but New World really did mean a lot to me. Trying to figure out how to cope without New World has not been fun. I have a weird way of dealing with grief and loss where I just straight up compartmentalise and try to forget, so that hasn’t helped either. But, I’ll be moving onto writing about other MMO’s, there’s a couple I’ve been playing more casually recently so they’ll be a good starting point.
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