New World: Aeternum Review Summary

Last updated: 2026-02-12
  • Beautiful and immersive world
  • Satisfying and fluid combat
  • Diverse PvE and PvP content
  • Server capacity and queue problems
  • Buggy and unplayable
  • Weak story and mission design
New World: Aeternum header

Emotions

What players like:

Common complaints:

Gameplay feedback:

Performance notes:

Recommendations:

Other player notes:

Review evidence

Why players say this

What players like

Beautiful and immersive world: The game's world design is highlighted for its beauty and immersive qualities. Players enjoy the visually impressive environments and atmospheric effects.

Significant improvements since release: The game has seen notable improvements over time, including gameplay enhancements and quality-of-life changes. Players appreciate the polished state of the game.

Satisfying and fluid combat: The combat system is frequently praised for being smooth, responsive, and enjoyable. Players appreciate its unique mechanics and fluidity.

Fun and rewarding exploration: Exploration is a key aspect that players enjoy. The world is inviting and filled with diverse content, making exploration rewarding and fun.

Engaging crafting and gathering: The crafting and gathering systems are found to be engaging and rewarding. Players enjoy the realistic and polished mechanics of these activities.

Common complaints

Weak story and mission design: The game's narrative is criticized for being uninteresting, lacking depth, and having an average at best storyline. Additionally, there is a lack of mission variety and proper closure, making the overall story experience underwhelming.

Game shutdown: The game is shutting down, with servers being taken offline. Players express disappointment with the lack of a dignified farewell.

Buggy and unplayable: The game is reported to be buggy and, in some cases, unplayable. These bugs significantly impact the gameplay experience.

Toxic community: The in-game community is described as toxic, with players experiencing rude and aggressive behavior in chats and other social interactions.

Repetitive endgame content: The endgame is described as repetitive and grindy, with activities that feel monotonous and lack variety. This repetitiveness makes the endgame experience feel like a chore.

Gameplay and performance

Diverse PvE and PvP Content: The game offers a wide range of activities including dungeons, raids, open-world PvP, instanced PvP, territory fighting, and elite loot chasing. Players appreciate the variety of group content and PvP battles, although some mention balancing issues in PvP.

Flexible Combat and Progression Systems: The game features a no-class system allowing high build creativity, a flexible combat system, and a unique healing system with support roles. The combat is often compared to the Souls series, indicating depth and challenge.

Comprehensive Crafting System: The game includes a deep and complex crafting system that is both intuitive and comprehensive. Players appreciate the gathering mechanics and the ability to craft and farm materials.

Customizable Builds and Character Progression: Players can customize their builds and enjoy flexible character progression. The game offers a satisfying skill progression system and build diversity.

Open World Exploration: The game provides an immersive open world with various activities and rewarding exploration. Players enjoy the vast game world and the atmosphere it offers.

Server capacity and queue problems: Servers often cannot handle the traffic, leading to long queues and making the game unplayable. Players report wait times of several hours, and servers frequently reach full capacity.

Performance and optimization issues: The game suffers from performance issues, including lags, FPS drops, and poor optimization. Some players report improvements over time, but issues persist, especially on modest hardware.

Game freezing and crashing issues: The game experiences persistent optimization issues, including lags, bugs, freezing animations, lost textures, disconnections, and crashes. These issues are frequently mentioned and significantly impact gameplay.

Numerous bugs and glitches: The game has multiple bugs and glitches, including connection issues and minor desync problems. These bugs are widespread and affect the overall gaming experience.

Game launch issues: There are specific issues related to game launch, including problems with DirectX 11 and anti-cheat software causing random crashes.

Recommendations

Highly recommended MMO experience: The game is frequently recommended for its beautiful, engaging, and unique MMO experience. It offers a rich and immersive world with challenging gameplay, crafting, housing, and skill-based combat.

Mixed recommendations with criticisms: Some reviewers recommend the game despite its criticisms, while others do not recommend it at all. This indicates a divide in player experiences and satisfaction.

Specific gameplay features: The game is recommended for those who enjoy crafting, fishing, gathering, and life skills. It also offers new raid dungeons, overland zones, expeditions, and PVP maps regularly.

Recommendations based on pricing: The game is recommended to be bought if priced below 10 euros or when it becomes free. Some suggest waiting for a discount before purchasing.

Recommendations for specific player types: The game is recommended for players who enjoy skill-based combat and PvP-focused gameplay. It is also suggested for those who love questing and having a good time.

Platform notes

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback for 'New World' on platforms like Linux and Steam Deck reveals a mixed experience. While many users appreciate the performance optimizations and controller support, significant issues such as anti-cheat problems, frequent crashes, and the lack of an offline mode detract from the overall experience. The game requires some initial setup and tweaking to run smoothly, but once configured, it can offer a enjoyable experience.

Extra review signals

Monetization: The game has faced significant criticism for its aggressive monetization strategies, particularly the locking of essential content behind paywalls and the high cost of DLCs. Players feel that the game employs predatory practices, such as pay-to-win mechanics and excessive microtransactions. Additionally, there is a lack of communication and trust from the developers, as well as server and technical issues that detract from the overall experience. Despite these criticisms, some players acknowledge positive aspects, such as the lack of pay-to-win mechanics in certain areas and the enjoyable gameplay experience.

External guides: The primary issue identified from user feedback is a heavy reliance on external data sources. Players frequently need to consult Excel spreadsheets and online guides to manage inventory, crafting, and understand game mechanics, which detracts from the overall gaming experience.

Other review notes

Add Turkish language support: Players have requested the addition of Turkish language support to make the game more accessible to Turkish-speaking users.