New World, Amazon's upcoming MMO, is delayed

The upcoming fantasy MMO New World will not make its planned release in May: Amazon Game Studios announced today that because of the coronavirus outbreak, it has decided to push the launch back to August 25.

"Like most of you, our entire team has been sequestered as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While we are still making great progress, developing an ambitious MMO like New World remotely has introduced some challenges," the studio said in an update.

"We want to make sure that we have the time needed to make New World the very best it can be for our players. As a result, we’ve chosen to delay the game’s release in order to reach our quality bar as we work remotely for the foreseeable future."

The ongoing alpha test will continue, and signups are still open at newworld.com. Amazon also said that it will continue to share information on New World features and updates through social media and the New World website.

Speaking of which, it also dropped an update today on Invasions, an event that sees the forces of Corruption lay siege to a player-defended fort.

The day before an invasion takes place—nice of Team Corruption to schedule these things in advance—players of level 50 or higher can sign up to take part in the fort's defense; the governor of the territory under assault can select 10 heroes to take part in the battle, while 40 more slots will be filled at random from the signups.

If the defense against escalating waves of enemies is successful, the defenders will be granted XP, in-game currency, and loot. If the fort falls, XP will be awarded in smaller amounts, but the territory will lose upgrades including crafting stations, fort gates, and fort turrets, making them more vulnerable to future attacks.

Invasions sound a lot like the 50v50 PvP battles we learned about in our recent hands-on session with New Worlds. Instead of fighting off waves of Corruption, companies can recruit up to 50 players to fight for control of territories. These battles have a deeper impact on the game, because a loss is actually a loss: If you can't defend your turf against attacking players, you lose it completely.

New World isn't the only game to suffer a delay as a result of the coronavirus pandemic: Games including Rainbow Six Siege, Path of Exile 2, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Fallout 76 have all either pushed back updates or warned that it could happen.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.