New World preps server merges, opens PTR for April’s QOL patch, and slaughters bunnies

New World is busy this week, so let’s get right to it. First, the public test realm opens later today with a quality-of-life update in testing. Amazon says it’s anticipating a briefer-than-normal test span to allow players to test its fixes to a laundry list of bugs, including irritants in Tempest’s Heart and Lazarus Instrumentality, overpowered darkness veils, excessive player collision from small environmental objects, and several issues with the UI, map, and inventory.

Second, with the end of last weekend’s free-play event, Amazon says it’s merged the free-play worlds into pre-existing servers and is now preparing a fresh round of server merges for this Friday across four regions:

As MMO blogger Belghast notes, that freebie weekend doesn’t seem to have bolstered the game’s playerbase significantly.

New World just finished a free weekend on steam where anyone who was interested could download it and play. It looks to have caused a roughly 3% bump, which seems real rough for giving the game away. I think anyone who was interested at all has already played it honestly. pic.twitter.com/0h67QFJYwv

— Belghast ⚔️ Quaggan Friend 🇺🇦 (@belghast) April 12, 2022

Finally, New World is in the midst of taking revenge on rabbits, and we’re not kidding.

“Help cull the plague of rabbits from April 12 to April 25 and be rewarded handsomely! During this two-week period, corrupted rabbits will be dropping special loot. Every day players can earn up to three Diamond Gypsum in drops, and up to 5 luck-increasing consumables. Those luck totems will come in handy, as there’s rumor of a mystical storage chest that could be found in the possession of these rabbits.”

We're entering rabbit-hunting season!

Corrupted Rabbits are infesting Aeternum and dropping special loot from April 12 – April 25th.

🐇 https://t.co/UTyPyPTW9Z pic.twitter.com/ujmZzPcdzM

— New World (@playnewworld) April 11, 2022