New World isn’t free-to-play, but has no monthly subscription

Amazon’s open-world MMO New World is set to launch on September 28. I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve had a proper take on the genre, and New World has my interest. But the landscape has changed quite a bit since the early days of MMOs. A lot of them have gone down the path of free-to-play, and I honestly think that’s a big reason for the downgrade in overall quality.

New World won’t be free-to-play, as it requires a one-time purchase of $39.99 for the Standard Edition. There’s also the Deluxe Edition for $49.99 which throws in some additional cosmetics and other goodies.

Barriers to entry aren’t always a good thing for new games looking to attract as many people as possible, those on a budget will be happy to hear there is no monthly subscription required to play New World. Once you purchase the game, it’s yours to play forever. I think that’s a pretty fair trade-off.

I’ve never really been a huge fan of monthly subscriptions, but I understood their purpose as a revenue stream to continue developing new content post-launch. But I’ve always felt a sense of pressure that if I’m paying monthly for a game, I have to play it all the time to get my money’s worth. With no monthly subscription, you’re not compelled to play every single day of every single month.

To supplement revenue, New World will have an in-game store but it will only allow for purchases of cosmetic items.  The cosmetics you purchase will consist of armor/clothing eyes, apparel and weapon skins and themed decorative furnishings for your in-game house. The cosmetic items that you purchase will offer no gameplay advantages or provide any perks or boosts to stats.

It’s possible that their may be expansions in the future that cost money as well, but this would presumably be in addition to regularly occurring content updates. In other words, New World will likely receive post-launch updates that add content to the game, but major expansions that introduce entirely new areas, dungeons/expeditions, etc. will probably cost money.