New World Review In-Progress

Today is a big day for MMO fans, as Amazon's long-awaited game New World is finally out. After a number of delays, some of us were justifiably wondering if New World would ever see the light of day. Now that the game is finally here, many MMO players are ready to dive in and see if New World has legs or if it's just going to be a flash in the pan. I'm one of those players, and I plan to review New World for SlashGear, but I wanted to take some time to talk about what such a review would entail.

Obviously, there aren't any pre-release reviews of New World because the servers just went live today. Reviewers are getting access to the game at the same time everyone else is, so we'll be there playing right alongside the day one players and discovering what the game has in store.

I'm planning on making this review as holistic as possible; I want to cover as many different aspects of the game as I can. This includes the leveling process, group content, crafting systems, PvP systems, and – perhaps most importantly – endgame content. There's a big fat question mark looming over New World's endgame with many players wondering if there is enough content to keep us all engaged, and I plan to tackle that question in my review.

A comprehensive review of New World is something that's going to take time. Usually, I don't like to write these "review in-progress" articles, but I feel it's necessary for a game as vast as an MMO like New World to set the proper expectations on what I want to review and how long it's going to take. After all, there's a lot to explore, a lot to play, and a lot to critique.

Keep in mind that people play MMOs for a lot of different reasons, so if I were to rush to the level cap and write a review that mostly focused, say, on the leveling process, I'd be doing a disservice to those who play the game primarily for the high-level endgame content or those who want to know about PvP.

So, with a desire to play the game as extensively as I can before I write a review, we're looking at a longer timeline than usual. I'm not sure how long it will take, but it's going to be at least a couple of weeks before a review is ready. It could even be longer than that because I don't know exactly what I'm in for – though I did participate in one of the betas, I stopped early on because I knew I wanted to review New World at launch and I didn't want what I experienced in the beta to influence my review of the final game too heavily.

To make a long story short: SlashGear is reviewing New World, and I'm going to try to make that review as comprehensive as possible, but that means a longer wait than usual. In the meantime, I'll be looking to write some shorter features about the game, so keep an eye out for those in the coming days and weeks!