New World had a stellar start and a pretty terrible slump since then, but it looks like Amazon’s focus is on the next project rather than restoring its former popularity.
New World’s updates have slowed significantly from what happened in the months after launch as developers struggled to salvage systems that were found to have bugs that worked slightly differently than intended or were completely broken. While all of this was going on, they were releasing decent sized updates, but that all changed later when development slowed down, and that might be related to AGS’ next MMO.
Namely, they are currently recruiting for the development of a new MMO, with the team based in Irvine, California. According to the user who drew attention to it, BagginsTV, AGS is looking for a senior game systems designer who will oversee things like progression, social systems, and monetization systems.
The recruitment post also notes that this is an “action MMO” and given the combat system in New World, it could be classified in the same genre. However, it could mean something along the lines of Diablo or Path of Exile, and it’s too early to draw conclusions since “action MMO” is a pretty broad term these days.
Notable about this project is that the MMO will be built on Unreal Engine and not on Amazon’s Lumberyard, which hopefully means fewer hitches compared to what New World had in the beginning.
