Amazon's MMO New World Will Feature Seasons And Battle Passes Going Forward

New World, Amazon's MMORPG that isn't Lost Ark, will be shifting to a seasonal model going forward, complete with a free and premium battle pass.

The game's first season, titled Fellowship & Fire, will launch on March 28, and will introduce new story quests, a new expedition (New World's version of dungeons), a new heartrune ability, a revamp of the main story in the Brightwood and Weaver's Fen zones, and gear set storage.

Each season will last approximately three months, with Amazon releasing a roadmap of what future seasons later this year will encompass. Season 2 is planned to include much-requested features like gear transmog, raid groups, and cross-server Outpost Rush. The game's first expansion is slated to release this fall alongside Season 3, and will add another highly requested feature--mounts. It will also see one of the game's existing zones "transformed" and will include a new weapon alongside additional story content and a new expedition. Amazon has not announced whether the upcoming expansion will be free or paid.

New World's seasonal battle pass will include a free and premium reward track. Through the battle pass, players will be able to earn cosmetics, boost tokens that can increase the rate at which a player earns weapon XP or boost trade skills, gear, and more by completing various challenges via the game's Season Journey and earning season XP by completing things like quests, faction missions, expeditions, and PvP battles. The premium battle pass will cost 20,000 Marks of Fortune, New World's premium currency, which puts the real-world cost of the battle pass at around $20. The battle pass includes 100 levels for both the free and premium tracks, and is shared across multiple characters in the same region. However, each reward can only be claimed by one character.

In a FAQ on the game's official website, Amazon attempts to assuage concerns that the new battle pass system may be "pay-to-win," as the battle pass rewards gear. Amazon notes that all non-cosmetic items in the battle pass can be earned for free in the non-premium battle pass. Gear awarded through the battle pass will not surpass 600 gear score, and does not include unique perks that are not already available in-game via other methods.

New World's last major content release was in October 2022, when Amazon introduced the new Brimstone Sands zone, the greatsword weapon, and began to revamp some of the game's starter zones to make for a better new-player experience. Amazon's MMO initially got off to a big start when it launched in 2021, briefly becoming one of the top games on Steam and nearly hitting one million concurrent players. In recent months, New World's player count has fluctuated between 137,000 concurrent players around the release of the Brimstone Sands update to more recent concurrent players counts of around 22,000, according to SteamDB.