New World’s Brimstone Sands releases today with greatswords, improved beginner experience, and more servers

After months of rising population and renewed community interest, New World seems as though it’s on the cusp of a genuine second chance. That’s why today’s Brimstone Sands content update — the game’s largest since its launch — may prove to be a do-or-die moment.

The centerpiece of the patch is the huge Brimstone Sands zone, which Amazon says is “roughly the size of 2.5 Everfalls,” in case you use that unit of measurement in your life. But there’s more than just an additional endgame region; New World’s also adding the Ennead expedition, a revamped starter experience, the Nightveil Hallow event, heartgem abilities, and the greatsword weapon line.

“We’ve completely redesigned the early levels of New World so players who start the game or roll a new character will experience brand new stories and quests,” the devs said.

As some of the community continue to wait for the fresh start worlds to arrive in early November, others will have to contend with server and queue craziness this week. Amazon announced that it’s opening up eight new realms across the globe with more on standby depending on the incoming population. Readers will recall that the studio granted accounts two free transfer tokens back in February, so if you’ve still got those, you can use them to pop over to quieter servers, but if you used yours, you’re gonna be stuck in queues… unless you pay 15 bucks for another transfer, as Amazon isn’t giving out more.

Downtime for the update began at 6 a.m. EDT this morning, and release is expected around 10 a.m. EDT [see update below]; you can begin downloading already.