The middle of January saw a rather odd page added to the saga of New World when Alistair McFarlane, the COO for RUST developer Facepunch Studios, made the half-serious but half-joking suggestion that he would buy the MMORPG from Amazon Games. “A game will live forever in the hands of a dedicated community,” he wrote at the time. “Games should never die.”
Well, it suddenly appears that things have swung back into serious territory: McFarlane announced on Twitter this past Friday that he was “signing a MNDA with [Unnamed Company]” and that “this is the end of my communications for the foreseeable future on anything related to [Unnamed Company] Games.” He further clarifies that discussions about whatever this is related to will be private from this point forward and that he is simply having nothing more than conversations. “Keep hope but, have low expectations,” he closes.
Naturally there are a lot of people who are excited at the prospect but also a bit gun-shy or advising some cautious optimism, especially since everyone (including ourselves) is effectively attempting to answer a Wheel of Fortune puzzle with most of the letters missing. For all we know, he’s not even talking about New World. Still, this year has already proven that fans’ bingo cards have been ripped apart. Stranger things could happen.
