New World Brimstone Sands Preview: A New Frontier One Year On

thegamer.com:

New World is fast approaching its first birthday, and while it has definitely not been an easy ride for Amazon’s MMO these past 12 months, I have retained a cautious optimism as I’ve followed each new update. Brimstone Sands is what New World has needed for many months now: an entirely new region to explore, with new mobs, puzzles, stories, and quests. Unlike the other 60+ areas, Brimstone Sands is also a controllable territory. This scorched wasteland is surprisingly beautiful, and the stories of the Ancient Egyptians and lost Roman legions swing the game in a fresh, ambitious direction.

I previously wrote about how I returned to Aeternum last month, and that was before the significant summer update, and now Brimstone Sands as well. It can sound pretty old hat to claim that an MMO is making a comeback, but plenty have done it. New World is much, much closer to what I (and other players) have always wanted from the game when it was released last September. Is it all the way there yet? No. But the devs aren’t finished, either.

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Much like we’ve seen in the most recent Expeditions, the design team have really started to amp up the game’s visuals. There can be no complaints about dull mobs in Brimstone Sands, and the town design is literally worlds away from your Everfalls and Windswards. The world building is what has always drawn me to New World, and it’s exciting to see the sheer scale of Brimstone - the sprawling towns with arenas, the mammoth pyramids on the horizon, and the hidden crypts below the sands simply begging to be explored.

Brimstone Sands also has the Ennead Expedition for players to dig into. This follows the region’s main storyline to its