Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Amazon is once again delaying New World. The company now plans to release its upcoming MMO, which was slated to come out this spring after its previous delay, on August 31st, 2021. Since pushing back the title in July, Game Director Scot Lane said Amazon Game Studios “identified a few very compelling features that just wouldn’t make” the release timeframe the developer announced last year. The team believes those features are “transformative,” and so it’s taking the extra time it needs to make sure they’re ready for launch. In the meantime, it plans to continue alpha testing the game, with an open beta scheduled to start on July 20th.
To say New World has had a bumpy road to release would be an understatement. When it was first announced, Amazon said the game would come out in May 2020. The pandemic then pushed the release back to the summer before Amazon Game Studios said it needed almost a full year to add more mid and endgame content.
It’s also safe to say there’s a lot of pressure on Amazon Game Studios to deliver a title that’s both a commercial and critical success. New World’s previous delay came one week after Amazon took the unusual step of rolling back the availability of its first AAA title, hero-based shooter Crucible. Three months later, it announced it was stopping development on the game. Despite those setbacks, incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently told employees he was committed to the studio. “Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years,” he said. “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in Amazon Game Studios, I believe we will if we hang in there.”
