New World open beta starts September 9

After many delays, New World is for real, real, real, real releasing on September 28. Before that, on September 9, Amazon's MMO is going into open beta for one last public test.

The news comes by way of a new Gamescom trailer (embedded above), which once again sets up New World's historical fantasy premise: You're coming to a legendary island where hidden treasure is waiting to be found, but dark magic threatens to consume greedy sailors.

It's a nice trailer, but not exactly indicative of what New World feels like to play. I included some gameplay gifs in my preview of one of New World's dungeons, if you want a better sense of what the combat is actually like.

And, of course, you can try it for yourself when the open beta starts. Barring technical issues (one of the reasons for the last delay, which followed a closed beta), it should be easy to get in to. Amazon is using Steam's recently-added playtest feature, so you can request access to the open beta directly on the New World Steam page and download it there when the time comes.

During the closed beta, Sarah found the game's opening hours to be formulaic and grindy, but there's much more MMO to explore. This next beta will run from Thursday, September 9 through Sunday, September 12, so it'll be another fairly brief look, at least in MMO terms.

If Amazon finally stops delaying New World, it'll release in full on September 28 on Steam for $40. The MMO will potentially be the ecommerce company's first successful major game release, if the excitement we're seeing around it holds (something Evan talks about in his recent analysis of Steam wishlisting).

For more, here's all the info we've gathered on New World over the past few years.

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.