Amazon has tried for years to get a games label off the ground, to varying degrees of success. The online storefront's next project: an MMORPG with light supernatural elements and colonial themes. It's called New World, and footage from the game's closed beta has leaked, allowing everyone a peek at the upcoming project. And where did this leak originate, you may ask? PornHub.
Don't worry though, you won't need to visit any websites that would get you into trouble in order to see the game in action. YouTube channel Less Than Epic has re-uploaded the footage with their own commentary, so you can have some context for everything you're seeing. Even with a disclaimer that the video falls under fair use though, the video could be taken down any minute - so hurry up and watch if you're curious:
Even the best MMOs are notoriously difficult to parse through, so nine minutes of footage is hardly enough to make a proper judgment call. Still, we can see that there are some elements both expected and surprising: the abilities hotbar at the bottom of the screen is typical of MMORPGs, while the emphasis on gathering resources and crafting feels lifted from the survival game genre. Combat looks to be aim-based (at least for ranged weapons), something you can see in more action-oriented MMOs like Tera.
Really, the biggest way that New World seems to be setting itself apart is a focus on sandbox design, meaning player-created housing and a player-dependant economy. Those ideas were fundamental to cult favorite Star Wars Galaxies, but few MMOs have attempted to ape its designs in years since (survival games yes, massively multiplayer games, not so much). We'll have to wait to see how this all shapes up and fits together, but it's an exciting prospect at least.
As for why PornHub of all places, the reason likely comes down to supervision. Video sites like YouTube have far more tools for quickly combating exactly this sort of scenario, whereas it takes longer for a leak to be noticed and taken down on a site full of adult film clips. Fallout 4 footage, for example, was leaked in 2015 the same way, with a PornHub video creatively titled "HIDDEN CAMERA SHOWS AUDIENCE TEASED BY BIG BUTT MAN IN TIGHTS LIVE".
Never let it be said that leakers don't think outside the box.
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