While New World’s 2023 roadmap outlined plenty of interest coming to the game next year, the majority of fans zeroed in on what was missing. Even our own columnist Tyler took a moment to mull over the roadmap and process what is and isn’t there. It appears that the devs were paying attention, and in the latest Q&A video they address fan concerns.
The very first answer confirms that not everything coming to the game is on the roadmap; some things may arrive sooner, while other things are planned but are not ready to be shared. “These [features in the roadmap] are the ones we have super-high confidence in,” says director Scot Lane. That same questioner also remarks that no PvP content was teased, which elicits confirmation that there are changes to faction influence in the works, though details on what that entails are sparse.
Another questioner asks about the teased dagger weapon, and one of the devs confirms that the daggers will likely not be coming this year: The team is instead looking into a weapon that’s tied to the Focus stat and has more healing and buffing capability. “The most likely next weapon will be around Focus, and we’re just not ready to commit to a date on it yet,” one dev notes. As for the dagger, the team promises it’s “still part of the conversation.”
The devs are similarly non-committal about mounts, saying that they are being developed but are not in a place where they can be given a release window. This further prompts discussion about the possibility of having a tradeskill associated with mounts and a form of progression.
On the topic of merging fresh start servers, that process has already happened, combining several fresh start servers and Return to Aeternum event servers. The list of merges notably makes clear that Amazon has nixed initial plans to merge some servers into legacy servers.
When asked about the month of September being anemic in terms of content, the devs remark that they’re “not comfortable” confirming what’s happening in that month because it’s “so far in the future,” once more pointing out that feature arrivals are in flux and they don’t want to miss a launch window. More details are likely to come five or six months into 2023.
The video also confirms that transmog features will have dye options, agrees that reducing the number of dungeon mutations is necessary and is in the process of being done, confirms again that leaderboards are coming in February, discusses that season development is not taking devs away from feature creation, and talks about the difficulty in adding a new map to Outpost Rush.
