Is New World Dead?

New World was one of Amazon Games’ first entries into the industry, and it was certainly an excitable one. For months, gamers worldwide were abuzz about this broad, ambitious new MMORPG, even though it was delayed on more than one occasion. However, now that the hype has long since died down, the amount of people playing New World has seen a considerable drop. Today, we’re looking at the state of the game and answering a very important question: is New World dead?

Unfortunately, as with many other games out there, there’s a portion of the community that insists New World is dying. There has been a sizeable drop in the number of people actively playing the game, but that’s part of the lifecycle for any video game, no matter how good it is. Are people correct when they say New World is dying, or is there a future in store for the platform?

We’re hopeful, and it doesn’t look like New World is dying just yet.

Is New World Dead? No.

Image Credit: SteamCharts.com

That’s probably the simplest way we can write our answer. No, New World isn’t dead, and despite dwindling numbers, the player base remains strong. As with almost any new game, New World started out remarkably strong, but the player count dropped over time, leaving the most die-hard fans and a consistent circulation of new players. It’s a similar lifecycle that you’d see in any top-tier title like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, or Assassin’s Creed.

According to SteamCharts.com, which tracks the number of players in a game at any given time, New World isn’t dead. When it launched, it peaked with 913,027 players, and admittedly, it has seen a dramatic decline since then. At the time of writing this breakdown, the 30-day peak sat at 32,064 players. However, that was the highest peak the platform had seen in six months, and the graphs displayed a tangible increase in players over time.

These figures put New World in 30th place on Steam overall – if New World was dead, it would be ranked much lower down the list. At present, there’s a similar debate ongoing regarding another Amazon Games-related property, with people asking, ‘is Lost Ark dead‘?

Do People Still Play New World?

New World’s 2022 roadmap (Image Credit: Amazon Games)

As the information above clearly shows, there are still many people playing New World, even in 2022.

However, one area that the game is lacking is its social media presence. By this, we mean almost nobody is either watching or streaming the game on platforms like Twitch. This is to be expected, as it’s tied in with the typical lifecycle of a new game that we’ve already discussed.

According to TwitchTracker.com, when the game launched, it peaked at 977,018 viewers. At present, the 7-day average viewership tops out at 2,524 on Twitch. There certainly are games that perform worse than New World on social platforms, but it’s admittedly not a good place for any title to find itself. Although it must be said that MMORPGs typically do not fare well on streaming platforms, so New World is more or less hitting the par for the course.

Ultimately, there is still a relatively strong community driving the growth of New World as it undergoes constant development. There’s a dedicated player base enjoying the game, and Amazon Games, the developer, is constantly rolling out improvements and updates. In March of 2022, AG revealed a roadmap for New World, which included an entire year of content that included new areas, expeditions, events, weapons, and features.

Is New World dead? No – the number of people playing the game might have dropped, but it’s definitely not dead.