New World season pass price may shock, but Amazon says it’s worth it

pcgamesn.com:

The New World season pass is an all-new way to earn exclusive skins and cosmetics in Amazon Games’ MMORPG, but its price point is relatively steep when compared to competitors.

The New World season pass costs $20 (~£16), which is quite a bit higher than competitors. Riot’s FPS game Valorant charges around $10 (£9.99) for its two-month-long battle pass, and Overwatch 2’s battle pass comes in at $9.99 (£8.39) for two months as well.

These, of course, are two very different games from New World, but competitors like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV don’t offer a paid season pass scheme at all, instead simply rewarding those who complete specific seasonal achievements – scoring high on the PvP leaderboard in WoW will net you a unique title, for example.

Amazon Games’ sister MMO, Lost Ark, is probably the closest in terms of battle passes, offering the free, Premium, and Super Premium tracks. Premium costs ($15 / £13) and Super Premium comes in at ($30 / £26) – again, pretty hefty compared to WoW or FFXIV.

Chatting to creative director David Verfaillie in a Fellowship and Fire-focused roundtable, I asked how the development team settled on the price of the New World season pass.

“It’s a three-month experience, so we wanted to deliver an amount of content and rewards that we thought would be fulfilling over those three months,” he tells me. “So what led to the pricing of the pass is the amount of stuff that players can earn.

“We felt that the value of the rewards that players can earn via the premium track is very good; more than a five-to-one value over the cost. In addition, there’s a bunch of value in the free track.”

Verfaillie goes on to state that Amazon “felt it was a very fair price for players in terms of all