Amazon's New World MMO Has Been Delayed Because Of COVID-19

If you've been looking forward to the release date of Amazon's new MMO New World, then here's some sour news: Amazon has announced that New World has been delayed. Originally, New World was supposed to launch in May, with a closed beta slated to begin sometime this month. With this delay, the release date has been pushed back to the other side of summer.

Like many of the game delays we've been seeing recently, the delay of New World is down to the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the virus outbreak, the New World team has been forced to work from home. In a blog post today, the team says that it is "still making good progress," while noting that working remotely on an MMO has "introduced some challenges."

To ensure that New World is actually well-prepared for launch, its release date has been pushed back to August 25th, 2020. The currently-ongoing alpha will continue to remain open, with Amazon not giving a new end date for it. The closed beta, which was originally scheduled to go live this month, will instead happen in July.

If you're interested in checking out that now-delayed closed beta, you can gain access through a couple of different methods. You can head over to the New World website, sign into your Amazon account, and sign up for your chance to be considered, but that doesn't guarantee entry into the beta. If you want to secure your spot in the closed beta, you'll need to pre-order the game, which is an uncertain proposition when we're talking about a new MMO.

As we move closer to New World's new release date of August 25th, Amazon says that it will "continue to share details on features and content going into the game." We'll let you know when those details are shared, so stay tuned for more.