The great thing about New World is that it’s a game you can take a break from and come back. Progression has been made relatively easy, so it won’t take long to catch up to your friends. With the Season 10 Nighthaven release, everyone is learning new content together so it’s a great time to jump in. Best of all, if you have the base game but not Rise of the Angry Earth, all that content is now included for free! You can now ride a mount, level up to max character and trade skill levels, and get into all the end game content.
While it’s still a great time to return, it is with a heavy heart that I feel bound to warn you that there will no future development of the game beyond October 28, 2025. However, the servers are still open, all the content that was created is still available, there is still a small team who are keeping the game running smoothly and publishing bug fixes. It’s not the big, hopeful production it was, but instead is a beautiful and time-limited world for you to explore while it lasts. Don’t waste the opportunity.
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I recommend starting a new character. The starting experience has been completely upgraded, and the Main Story Quest is smoother and more engaging. The levelling experience will remind you how to play. Also, coming back to an inventory full of things you don’t know how to evaluate can be daunting.
Don’t delete your old character, just leave it while you start a new one, until you have a better understanding of the game. You can have up to 6 characters per server/region.
The new starting experience includes Archetypes, which allow you to choose your starting weapons and get a boost to some trade skills. We have some information about Archetypes and what to pick here. (Note: this is a section of a new guide series we are developing. The links do not extend into all content yet but check back later if you’re interested)
This will depend on how long it’s been since you played. If you quit soon after release, a lot has changed. In October 2022, the New World team published this promotional video, which does a good job of illustrating some of the earlier changes.
The /neworldgame subreddit also has a good list with a slightly different focus than ours below. These are the some of the major changes as observed from our perspective, approximately but not exactly in timeline order:
- Azoth travel is cheap and not weight- or distance-related, plus the Azoth cap has been extended to 2500.
- Storage sheds from all settlements and outposts can be accessed from any of them, with no transfer costs or faction ownership restrictions.
- Added new weapon Void Gauntlet.
- Town boards are no longer a good way to gain XP and are only good for upgrading towns and earning Standing.
- Housing tax is now reasonable.
- Added new weapon Blunderbuss.
- New expedition Tempest’s Heart.
- New expedition Barnacles and Black Powder.
- No longer require an orb to enter an expedition – no more charging people to join dungeon runs.
- Brimstone Sands was added, along with a new Main Story Quest to explore it.
- New expedition The Ennead.
- Dungeon mutators were added, which is an increased difficulty level for expeditions.
- Heartrunes, an extra ability, were added.
- Added new weapon Great Sword.
- 3×3 Arenas were added as an additional PVP mode.
- There is now a PVP track where you can earn rewards.
- Leaderboards were added.
- Season Passes were added.
- Gear sets were added, so that you can change armor, weapons, heartrune, and consumables quickly.
- Transmog was added – the ability to turn any item appearance into a skin, and dye armour skins.
- Raid groups were added – up to four groups of 5 with visible health bars and raid chat.
- 20-player Trial of the Devourer raid added.
- 10-player Hatchery raid added.
- New expedition Empyrean Forge.
- The watermark/expertise system was replaced with a new, simpler way to Upgrade – the Gear Score of the item transfers directly to your Gear Score with no modifiers.
- Enemy family resistances have removed (no damage types are weak against any mob type unless the individual has an affix, but some damage types are still strong against mob families).
- Added new weapon Flail.
- First Light was removed and replaced with a non-player-owned territory – Elysian Wilds.
- Edengrove was made into a player-owned territory with a new settlement.
- The perk system was completely overhauled and a number of perks were removed, including Wards and Resilient; others reduced, including Banes and most damage-add perks; and new perks added.
- Gear biasing was added so that you are more likely to get drops of the type of gear you are wearing.
- Mounts were added.
- New unique items called Artifacts were added, for those who have the expansion.
- Crafting RNG was reduced significantly, with the option to choose every attribute and perk available at a high material cost.
- Increased level cap to 65, gear score cap to 700, trade skill cap to 250.
- New expedition Savage Divide.
- New expedition Glacial Tarn.
- Salvage All was added to the inventory system.
- New Activities tab where you can enter Expeditions, Trials, OPR, and Arenas directly. You can queue solo or with up to 4 people and will be matched with others who make similar selections cross-server within your region.
- 10-player Winter Rune Forge raid added
- Combat code was reworked to make fixing bugs easier!
- Controller support added.
- Console crossplay with Playstation 5 and Xbox S|X
- New FFA PVP zone the Cursed Mists.
- Well of Fortune added to Spyglass Ridge to buy gear and items using Mystic Doubloons.
- New 10-player Raid with 3 bosses – the Hive of Gorgons.
- Increased gear score cap to 725.
- Added Solo Soul Trials
- Added lots of daily quests.
- Increased gold rewards for Random expedition queues.
- New starting experience with Archetypes.
- Reworked quest interfaces.
- New jump and swimming!
- Ammunition has been removed.
- Item durability and repair kits have been removed.
- All lore pages are now obtainable.
- Temporary Seasonal servers with different rulesets.
- New OPR map – Coral Divide.
- Expeditions Unleashed open world boss rotation added.
- New 3v3 PVP Arena map added.
- Capture the Flag PVP mode added with 2 maps.
- New OPR map – Tower of Calomel.
- New zone added – Nighthaven.
- Gear score increased to 800GS
- Level cap increased to 70.
- Huge perk rework – charm sockets added to gear, set bonus and infix perks added.
- Catacombs 3 player random dungeon extraction mode added.
- New 10-player Raid – Isle of Night.
- Rise of the Angry Earth is free – no more paid DLCs.
As I mentioned above, starting a new character is a good way to get re-acquainted with the game. But if you’re attached to your existing character, here are some ways to continue it.
Below Level 60
If you left before completing the Main Story Quest, you’ll probably find yourself quite confused, as the questline was revamped and Yonas is no longer where you left him. There have been some known issues with returning players not being able to progress the MSQ, but I believe these have all been fixed now.
Look in your Journal for an entry under Main Story and make sure the quest is pinned. If there is nothing there, go to your Map and look for any main quest markers. Check the map Filters on the left side and make sure Objectives and Main Story are both ticked.
If you don’t have a Main Story quest marker, check any completed quest markers.
You should be able to pick up your main questline from there and earn your Azoth Staff.
Note: you do not have to complete the Windsward/Monarch’s bluff main story quest if you have MSQ objectives in a higher zone – these were added when the quests reworked so existing players could experience the storyline.
If you left before the Brimstone Sands update, you’ll want to unlock your Heartrune slot and explore the zone for Elite chests, runeglass resources, and rare furniture schematics.
- Complete the Brimstone Sands questline.
- To unlock your Heartrune slot, you’ll need to complete Past Prologue on the Brimstone MSQ and also the side quest The Antiquarian’s Dream in order to receive the Secrets of the Heartgem quest from Anna Rózsa.
- Find all 26 Glyphs for opening chests and doors.
If you left after the Brimstone update and were max level before you stopped playing, you might want to have a look at our Rise of the Angry Earth Survival Guide and continue to the new max level.
- Level up to 65
- Pick up the continuation of the Main Story at the library in Brimstone Sands – The Invasion of Artemis
- Complete the Elysian Wilds Main Story quest for the Attuned Leather Pants artifact.
- Raise Faction reputation to the new max level and complete the Faction advancement quest so that you can buy Chromatic Seals and other goodies.
- Raise trade skills to 250.
- Get a mount and raise your riding skill by completing mount races.
There is a lot for you to explore now. Two new 10-players raids, a whole new zone and big changes in gear. Check out our Nighthaven Survival Guide to get oriented.
- Pick up the new section Main Story quest from Morgaine in Cutlass Keys – note, you do not have to have completed the previoius main story to start this one, you just need to be level 65.
- Level up to 70
- Collect Tarot cards so you can open Elite chests in Nighthaven.
- Do Elite Chest runs, Catacombs, or various gear farms (see recruitment chat in game) to collect new gear.
- Save your attributes to gear sets for easy switching.
When you don’t log on for 6 months, your character gets removed from the server. All you need to do is select the character and choose the server you want to play on. Due to server merges, your old server may not exist anymore. You can check NWDB Server Status to see population levels on different servers and help make your choice.
If you’re in AP Southeast, choose Delos!
Good Luck!
Whatever you end up doing, the important thing to remember is that New World is a multi-player game. Reach out to members of the community for help and company. You can join the official discord to find people on your server, and if you’re on Delos, you can always send Landi a message and say hi 🙂
3 Responses
Hi,
I just purchased the base game and expansion after enjoying the Beta. If I begin to play now, will I have to start a new character on October 15th or will I be able to pick up where I left off after the update?
Hi, welcome to New World 🙂
If you start playing on the live servers now, you will keep your progress on that server. Some of us plan to stay on our legacy servers when Aeternum releases, so there will be people to play with. However, the Fresh Start servers are likely to have many more players, at least at launch. So some people speak as though they are forced to start over on Fresh Start. If you start on Delos, feel free to join our company discord for help and people to play with – https://discord.gg/2648JvWS8c