Amazon's New World is a land of missed opportunities
Amazon's New World is a land of missed opportunities
Amazon's new MMO, New World, may be the latest victim of cancel culture. New Earth is a game attack a pseudo-colonial island called Aeternum. At outset glance, New World has all the trappings of a game aimed to accost colonialism, its furnishings on the surroundings and how it forces people to battle each other for a place in the world.
The result? The game utterly fails. On a surface level, New World is a game that was spring to touch on some hard subjects. Yet in execution, it somehow completely skates over all of them, leaving several missed opportunities in its wake.
When I initially got this game, I was excited to experience something, either negative or positive. When you first load up New World, a Spanish Conquistador greets you with a disclaimer that the game's developers include people from multiple cultures, like to the disclaimer in Civilization VI. That got me pumped. Surely, this game was bent on attacking colonialism, and ready to tick someone off.
Instead, that was the last bit of emotion I would experience for the game, other than frustration at lagging graphics and game-breaking bugs. This is a real shame, considering the Caribbean setting that Aeternum channels has a turbulent history of strife, with many issues stemming from its colonization.
Caribbean history and shallow stories
The Taino of the Caribbean were the among the first people to take contact with the Spanish colonists. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he reported to the Spanish royalty about his dealings with them. He also called them "Indians," because he mistook the surface area for Republic of india. Columbus later implemented a labor system that rewarded the Spanish with the labor of the Indigenous population. He enslaved the region'southward natives, and tortured them to reveal the locations of gold throughout the area.
The harsh realities of colonization hit the Caribbean area get-go. The expanse has a devastating history — so why doesn't New World make whatsoever attempt to grapple with it?
To say New World has a plot might be giving the game likewise much credit. New World has a bare-bones premise, which barely explains the lore of the world, let lone accost issues of colonialism. You are simply shipwrecked on an island with mysterious crystals, which permit you to never age. You must struggle against the villainous Corrupted on the island, and have control of the land. That's information technology. I wish there were more to say.
During one of the quests, you'll acquire virtually Azoth, a mineral specific to the isle, which allows yous to fast-travel beyond the map. While I was playing, I could non help only think about my electric current playthrough of Concluding Fantasy Xiv, and a story arc where you lot investigate that world'south fast-travel crystals. All I could think was that Final Fantasy had both a meliorate storyline, and a ameliorate endeavour to explain the ramifications of colonization in a fantasy world.
Getting it wrong, merely keeping it fun
My problem with New World isn't that it takes a disagreeable stance on colonialism. My trouble is that information technology doesn't take a stance on the idea at all, while trying to sell itself as a colonial-era game. Ultimately, the game has a tiresome story considering it is not willing to chance making people angry.
Allow'southward compare New World to Horizon Zero Dawn, a game built on Indigenous aesthetics and mythology — a design choice with which I disagree. I nonetheless enjoyed the game, and could non wait to play it. The first time I played Horizon Zero Dawn, I could not put it down, if only because I could not await to see what the developers would get wrong.
With New World, the lack of surprises and risks makes information technology a slog. Furthermore, New World feels utterly unplayable when you hit roadblocks or game-breaking bugs.
This game has a lot of untapped potential, and missed a large opportunity to explore Indigenous stories for a bigger audition. For contrast, I have a lot of Native friends who love playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Even though Skyrim is about Nordic people, it deals a lot with colonization in a way we can recognize. We can besides remove ourselves from the setting enough that it'south an enjoyable gaming experience.
Stardew Valley, Creature Crossing and Skyrim all fall into this category. All of these titles have something that Natives can chronicle to, or want to get away from, and have massive gaming audiences. I feel as though the New Globe developers were so scared of insulting this demographic that they elected to practice nothing with them instead. For the most function, it was another way to alienate the Indigenous demographic.
Missed opportunities with factions
Once you achieve a sure level in New World, you can join a faction: Covenant, Marauders, or Syndicate. The factions take little to do with the plot, simply play a lot into New World'due south colonizing aspect. Players from the three factions tin can fight each other for territory. They can also get involved in other PVP adventures, such every bit ambushing players exterior of safe zones (maybe while that thespian is watching a cutscene).
A majority of the game's mechanics focus on faction territories. These stand for the biggest missed opportunity in the whole game. When I started the faction quest chain, I was then excited. Surely there was a hidden faction in the game, correct? I scoured the spider web for signs of a hugger-mugger faction, which would neutralize the effects of other factions, and return contested areas to the land. A fourth faction could represent the Native people in an area who are non Corrupted. Alternatively, it could be a group of people who want naught to practise with any faction, and want to return the area back to its natural status.
I reasoned that a game based on colonizing new territories would too accept a way to return each territory to a time before colonization, just like many current, existent-world Indigenous movements across the world. Simply I was incorrect. I would take loved nix more than to vest to a faction where y'all have to cease game quests in order to gain entry, simply similar joining the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim. Instead, you tin merely walk upwards to a faction representative and talk to them. Once over again, my hopes were dashed.
New World's futurity
In the showtime few weeks subsequently this game came out, I hung out in its online chat server. I asked fellow gamers how I could just focus on the plot and not worry about getting sniped by an enemy faction. They asked me why I'd want to do that.
As early on as a week later on the game'south release, I realized that there wasn't much substance in New World. The game could have gone for whatever flavor and any political stance. Instead, it took the vanilla, "not much to it" road. New reports suggest that New World is shedding 135,000 players per week, and it's no wonder. When you hope a lot, just autumn short in everything simply aesthetics, you are going to lose a lot.
My advice to players is this: If you lot want a plotline that deals with colonialism, get option up the umpteenth iteration of Skyrim that just dropped. It'll adjust you much better.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/amazon-new-world-missed-opportunities
Posted by: matthewslikeriatues.blogspot.com
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