It's 3am and I’m looking for iron. If you’ve played New World, you’ll know this is a competitive part of the game. There are only so many veins of iron on the map, and with 2,000 players on the server - and another 3,000 in the queue - competition for that iron is fierce. Want to make the mindless running through forests, caves, and cliffs more exciting? Fight some people along the way. After 30 hours (yes, I have played the game that much), I finally decided to flag for PvP. I should have done it earlier. It’s the best thing about New World - nothing else even comes close.
There I am, mining iron. A player of a similar level appears out of the bushes. I’m a Marauder, they’re a Syndicate. We’re not friends. They’re running the Fire Staff and Rapier combo. I’ve got a Great Axe and a Hatchet. I put out a lot of melee damage, but they’ve got range from the Fire Staff, and that thing hits hard. Ducking and weaving around rocks and trees, I close the gap and get a bit of damage off, but they fall back, drink a potion, and we’re back to square one.
The other player has the better of me. I’m chewing through light rations - bowls of chicken soup, basically - like I’m suffering from a four-week cold. When the potions and soup run out, I’m going to die. Unfortunately, I still can’t get close enough to do damage. Time for a drastic plan. I climb on top of a rock and start a wild game of chase. Round and round we go, up and down, round and round. And finally, there it is, I land my Reap ability from the Great Axe and the other player’s health bar disappears. I win. The iron is mine.
It was a battle that lasted about ten minutes. I can’t scream or shout because my flatmate is asleep on the sofa, but it’s the sort of gaming moment that makes me want to go “Fuck yeah!” Not many games elicit that response anymore. My heart is racing as much as it does when I’m sitting in a bush in the final ring of a PUBG match. New World’s PvP is good. Really good.
After that successful duel, I link up with some members of my faction and run some PvP quests. Gather at a town, group up, and then run into the wilderness as a massive zerg. We’re trying to declare war on Windsward. There are a few little skirmishes here and there, but the real action breaks out at the fort. Easily 40 players of each faction charge at each other. Fire falls from the sky, muskets rattle off from the backline, and healers shout “BOH DEE” for some reason. It’s beautiful chaos, and the game runs pretty smoothly considering all the mayhem on the screen. Our first official war is coming up at the weekend. I can’t wait.
There are flaws, of course. Some don’t like the clunky movement or the fact you can’t cancel your animations halfway through an attack. The open world takes hours to run around in and every quest is boring. Enemy variety is atrocious. Like, extremely bad. You’re going to fight 400 alligators by the time you hit level 60, and that’s not an exaggeration. Queues are several hours long. The game is designed for PvP, not PvE. Expeditions are mundane and a means to an end. If you want PvE, go play ESO.
Despite all this - despite all its glaringly bad design decisions - New World’s PvP saves this game. There is nothing quite like 30 people charging at each other screaming into the VOIP. Nothing quite like sitting in a bush waiting to ambush a player who’s just trying to complete a tedious boar-hunting quest. Nothing quite like running into the hills in a panic because you’ve just seen a horde of Syndicate baddies come up the road.
I wish New World had stuck with its PvP roots and not got itself in a muddle trying to appeal to all types of players. The foundations of something great are here, and the general feeling is one of hope - that Amazon Game Studios might have finally learned its lesson and could continue to deliver experiences without getting them all terribly wrong. For now, while you wait for whatever happens next with New World, turn on your PvP flag, yeah? I’ll see you out there.