Times are tough for Amazon Games, which has been struggling for some time. After the failure of the unfortunate Crucible (released in May 2020 and abandoned by the publisher in November of the same year), we learned three weeks ago that the ex-future MMORPG The Lord of the Rings was also canceled. . Fortunately, the firm of Jeff Bezos can still count on New World which, after having chained the delays, will soon see the light of day. Eight months ago, we gave you our first impressions of Hundred Player Battles. This time, we took advantage of the last days of the alpha to test a whole different side of the game.
If the hundred-player clashes fully justify its qualifier of “massively multiplayer”, New World does not forget all the same that an MMORPG must offer different types of activities in order to convince as many people as possible. For a few weeks now, the game has been offering its concept of Expeditions, which quite simply correspond to instanced dungeons to be traversed in small groups (from three to five players). The goal of the developers here is to offer an experience focused on coordination, and significantly different from the PvE phases of the open world. We are promised that each expedition will be unique, in terms of scenario as well as atmosphere. Boss behavior, environmental puzzles, and loot rewards should also be specific to each dungeon. Finally, the fact of progressing in closed places will also ensure a certain change of scenery compared to the exploration of the outer expanses.
For now, only two Expeditions are available in the alpha version of New World, but many more will see the light of day in the weeks to come. As end-game content, “Garden of Genesis” is reserved for players who have reached level 60. We will therefore be cleaning up the corruption that plagues this garden in a few months. For now, we have focused on the other expedition, entitled “The Armine Excavation” and accessible from level 25. This is an excavation site previously visited by Simon Gray, a famous archaeologist who has not given any news since he entered these dark undergrounds. Listening only to his courage (and his questbook), the hero we embody only has to team up with four other players to explore this site from top to bottom and walk in the footsteps of Sieur Gray. The latter has also left some messages written by way of breadcrumbs, each player being free to pick up and read these missives as he sees fit (or to ignore them completely if he has nothing to do with the script aspect). ).
While most MMOs are locked in a triptych “tank-DPS-healer”, the title of Amazon Games offers greater freedom to players. They can specialize in the use of different weapons (sword, bow, staff of life, musket, ice gauntlet…), without being restricted to a single category.
It took us about an hour to walk this expedition to the final boss, and we could sum up the experience this way: classic, but effective. So the dungeon level design turns out to be pretty well done but not revolutionary. Stairs ensure a certain verticality, the decorations are mainly made of wood and cut stones, some interesting chests are hidden in certain recesses, while the environmental puzzles are not likely to offend anyone’s neurons. The use of a magic staff allows here and there to break seals, unlock doors or decipher signs, while the use of glyphs triggers the reestablishment of a bridge in a specific place. The most “complex” passage concerns the presence of three relatively distant pressure plates, which must be activated simultaneously. As the mechanism triggers the appearance of new creatures, it is strongly recommended to regroup as soon as possible. This justifies in any case the minimum number of three players.
As for enemies, we encountered three different types of creatures: ghostly spirits, humanoid brutes, and big bipedal bats. Here again, the artistic direction does its job, but does not necessarily innovate compared to other games of the same genre. Ultimately, it’s the unclassified character system that gives these expeditions a special flavor. While most MMOs are locked in a triptych “tank-DPS-healer”, the title of Amazon Games offers greater freedom to players. The latter can specialize in the use of different weapons (sword, bow, staff of life, musket, ice gauntlet…), without being restricted to a single category. It is therefore up to each member of the group to constantly adapt to the current situation, whether in relation to the weapons already used by his companions (it is better to mix close-range weapons and ranged weapons in order to avoid the effects of redundancy. ) or depending on the creatures encountered (no need to persist with a fire stick against a flame resistant opponent).
