Say it five times fast: Winter Rune Forge Trial. That’s the formal name of New World’s next 10-person endgame raid, coming as part of the Season of the Guardian rollout. In fact, Amazon has both a written dev blog and a video on the raid, as AI lead designer Chad Redwitz, level designer Zach Holm, and seasons designer Patrick Smedley discuss everything from the boss fights to the rewards in store for players who make it to the end.
“Level Designer Zachary Holm, Lead Artist Brian Patenaude and I brainstormed the layout for this Trial,” environment artist Carlos Lopez says in the written blog. “We were all enthusiastic about the thought of dropping down from the ice floor after an intense fight. I took inspiration from the worlds in Dark Souls and Metroid Prime, specifically their sense of scale. My goal was to immerse players in a grand area while instilling the feeling that you’re just a small person walking through these historically significantly structures, each wall complete with its own story.”
Players will at various stages drop down through an icy chasm, parkour along a collapsed bridge structure, investigate seemingly inaccessible passages, and of course, solve a rune puzzle.
At the end of the video, the live devs do answer several player questions, including one on matchmaking. Smedley explains that this trial won’t offer LFG/matchmaking options; players will be putting their PUGs together as premades in open chat as with The Hatchery.
