These settlements are the hubs for each territory, so there's plenty of foot traffic, and a lot of competition. When a company claims a settlement, it gets to tax players using its services, like crafting and player housing, as well as providing company and faction-wide benefits. Three factions are looking to take control of Aeternum, with companies-New World's guilds-representing them by fighting wars and claiming settlements. New World's real appeal, and the closest it gets to a focal point, is the faction rivalry. The majority of the fights still just put you in a big pile of players and mobs where you can hardly see what's going on, but you can expect a few more thoughtful scraps with unique enemies. The first trio of dungeons are bland trips into underground ruins filled with things you've already killed so many times before, but things do pick up, with more distinct settings and tricky boss encounters that require a bit of planning and communication.

With five players and so many monsters, dungeons-called expeditions in New World-are where the fights are their messiest. When you throw a few more enemies and players into the mix it becomes impossible to really tell what's going on, and so you just spam your measly three abilities. You've got an active block and dodge, positioning to worry about, and you can read your opponents to predict their next move. You'll unlock all your weapon abilities very quickly, however, and if you find a pair of weapons you're comfortable with-I stuck to rapiers and muskets for most of the game-you're looking at hundreds of hours where you're just getting the odd passive bonus and not much else.įights do at least benefit from the dose of tactical nuance. When you level up you get more points to put into your strength, dexterity and so on, but each weapon type also has an experience bar, as well as two progression trees with three abilities each. Things do get a bit more challenging as you approach the endgame, encouraging you to engage with the system more, but for hundreds of hours you'll see little growth.

It's very plain, too, absent the kind of spectacles or surprises that make areas memorable.Ĭombat is in a similar situation, where the choice to use an action-based system instead of rows of hotbars is initially very welcome, but quickly runs out of steam. Aeternum is a pretty place, certainly, and for a long time I was happy to slowly saunter through its forests and swamps, admiring the natural world and the occasional ruin, but there just isn't much variety.

If Aeternum was the kind of place that inspired exploration, this might be less of a pain in the arse, but these journeys are devoid of interesting diversions. With no mounts and a fast travel system that charges you currency with a fixed cap, you'll be doing an absurd amount of running around.

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