New World: Aeternum News

[p][/p][p]Get ready to test your skill, coordination, and adaptability in the newest 3v3 Arena battleground coming to New World: Aeternum. This all-new map — the largest Arena yet — is entering the fight with a limited-time Preview Weekend from June 17 through June 23, ahead of its full integration in Season 9. Here’s everything you need to know before stepping into the ring.[/p][h2]A New Kind of Arena[/h2][p]While the name of the map will ultimately be voted on by the community, the location itself is already steeped in mystery. Deep within Aeternum, Syndicate explorers have uncovered an ancient site, its purpose long forgotten and its builders unknown. Though its weathered stonework suggests ties to early civilizations, the effigies and motifs hint at something far more primal — a place where animals or spirits were once worshiped, or perhaps feared.[/p][p]That power hasn’t faded. It lingers — drawing adventurers who seek to understand it, and fighters who would claim it through combat.[/p][p]This new map isn’t just visually distinct. It was designed in response to player feedback, offering a larger battlefield that creates meaningful strategic shifts between long-range and close-quarters combat. It’s not just a new arena — it’s a new way to play.[/p][h2]Map Overview[/h2]

• [p]Largest 3v3 Map Yet: Nearly 50% larger than existing Arena maps, with more elevation, cover, and flanking paths.[/p]
• [p]Dynamic Combat Phases: The map favors ranged combat early on, but forcing players into melee engagements quickly.[/p]
• [p]Environmental Landmarks: Ancient statues, waterfalls, and weathered ruins provide natural callouts and add to the tactical depth.[/p]

[p]“We wanted this to feel like a discovered place, not a constructed one. Something ancient, powerful, and reactive—visually and mechanically.” — Map Design Team[/p][h3]Strategic Impact[/h3][p]The map’s scale and design create a distinct flow that pushes players to adapt:[/p]

• [p]Team Composition: Ranged builds shine early, but melee dominance becomes critical once the circle tightens.[/p]
• [p]Mobility & Flexibility: Static strategies won’t cut it. Positioning, cover usage, and role switching are key to staying alive.[/p]
• [p]Cover Density: Sightlines are long at first but rapidly break down into close-range skirmishes, creating high-tension transition moments.[/p]

[h3]Integration & Preview Details[/h3]

• [p]Preview Availability: From June 17–23, this will be the only map in the 3v3 Arena queue.[/p]
• [p]Permanent Rotation: The map joins the standard Arena rotation in Season 9.[/p]
• [p]Twitch Drops: Earn the Hearty Twitch Cache during the preview week by watching 6 cumulative hours of New World: Aeternum on Twitch to earn your reward.[/p]

[h2]Visual Identity & Lore[/h2][p]Inspired by the Monarch’s Bluffs — a beautiful, underutilized style — this arena mixes temple ruins with organic natural elements, creating a lush-yet-foreboding battlefield. Animal motifs and spirit-worship themes are woven into the design, reinforcing the idea that this place was not simply made for combat, but for reverence… or sacrifice.[/p][p]“Concept art helped us lean deeper into the natural elements—juxtaposing ruin and overgrowth in a way that feels unique in the Arena ecosystem.” — Map Design Team[/p][h2]Developer Insights[/h2]

• [p]Biggest Challenge: Balancing size and intensity. Throughout each match, the arena seamlessly flows from long range combat to more close range encounters.[/p]
• [p]Player Feedback: Strong community desire for more variety, more scale, and better role balance helped shape every decision — from layout to pacing.[/p]
• [p]Competitive Expectations: This map rewards versatility and forces adaptation. Expect meta shifts favoring hybrid builds and mobile team comps.[/p]
• [p]More Maps Coming?: Not immediately, but we have concepts for maps in the pipeline if demand stays strong.[/p]
• [p]Pro Tip: Don’t anchor to one position. The fight will come to you — fast. Master transition points and use cover creatively to outlast and outmaneuver.[/p]

[h2]Prepare for the Preview[/h2][p]This isn’t just another arena — it’s a full evolution of the 3v3 experience. Watch for callouts to emerge from the community, theorycraft new comps with your squad, and sharpen your skills across all ranges.[/p][p]We’ll see you in the ring — if you can survive it.[/p]

[h3]Greetings, Adventurers![/h3]

This isn’t your average wardrobe update—unless your average includes lace, menace, and void-infused accessories. The Danse Macabre Bundle has twirled its way into the store, and it’s ready to conjure some chaos. Whether you’re channeling dark elegance or just want to hex your enemies in style, this gothic collection is the perfect match.


STORE ITEMS

Danse Macabre Bundle: The full set for the sorceress who doesn’t just cast spells—she makes a statement. Equal parts vintage elegance and eerie charm, this is how you dress for the end of the world (or at least the next war).

The Bundle Includes:

• Elegant Sorceress’s Victorian Hat: A wide-brimmed nod to the witching hour. Ideal for those who like their headwear dramatic and their presence undeniable.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’s Frilled Dress: Layers of lace, a touch of menace. This is not your grandma’s Sunday best.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’s Fingerless Gloves: For casting, clawing, or just looking like you have secrets.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’s Silk Stockings: Because even doom deserves a little shimmer.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’s Heeled Boots: Click-clack into combat with style that says “I hex with heels.”
  
• Evanescent Touch (Void Gauntlet Skin): A most elegant weapon from a more macabre era, perfect for the aspiring dark witch.
  
• Evanescent Star (Flail Skin): All beauty, all bite. Let your flail do the screaming.
  
• 
  

The Danse Macabre Bundle won’t linger in the void forever. Be sure to grab it before it vanishes into mist. We’ll see you—somewhere between the veil and the battlefield—in Aeternum.

[h3]Greetings, Adventurers![/h3]

This isn’t your average wardrobe update — unless your average wardrobe includes lace, menace, and void-infused accessories. The Danse Macabre Bundle will twirl its way into the store on June 10 and conjure some chaos. Whether you’re channeling dark elegance or just want to hex your enemies in style, this gothic collection is the perfect match.

[h2]Danse Macabre Bundle[/h2]
The full set for the sorceress who doesn’t just cast spells — she makes a statement. Equal parts vintage elegance and eerie charm, this is how you dress for the end of the world (or at least the next war).

The Bundle Includes:

• Elegant Sorceress’ Victorian Hat: A wide-brimmed nod to the witching hour. Ideal for those who like their headwear dramatic and their presence undeniable.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’ Frilled Dress: Layers of lace, a touch of menace. This is not your grandma’s Sunday best.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’ Fingerless Gloves: For casting, clawing, or just looking like you have secrets.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’ Silk Stockings: Because even doom deserves a little shimmer.
  
• Elegant Sorceress’ Heeled Boots: Click-clack into combat with style that says “I hex with heels.”
  
• Evanescent Touch (Void Gauntlet Skin): A most elegant weapon from a more macabre era, perfect for the aspiring dark witch.
  
• Evanescent Star (Flail Skin): All beauty, all bite. Let your flail do the screaming.
  

The Danse Macabre Bundle won’t linger in the void forever. Be sure to grab it before it vanishes into mist. We’ll see you — somewhere between the veil and the battlefield — in Aeternum.

[h2]Greetings, Adventurers![/h2]

New World: Aeternum Update 1.3.27 downtime will begin at 5:00 AM PT (1200 UTC) on June 3rd and last approximately 1.5 hours.

Check out the full release notes, including other notable fixes, below.


[h3]Seasonal Server 2[/h3]

• Seasonal Server 2 is our take on a hardcore experience. We’ve built this to reward you for flexing your mastery and knowledge of the game. Additionally, we want to open up all the content for all our players in this time limited experience. The major changes we have made for this server are:
  
• No Main Questline - We’ve built a new, very expedited quest line to follow. This questline will give you all the experience needed for your character to reach maximum level in approximately 6 hours. It will also introduce you to the new mechanic we’re using for progressing your character on this server, Azerite Tailings.
  
• Azerite Tailings - Azerite Tailings are an item that can be dropped from multiple different locations in the world and can be used to craft new types of inventory caches for yourself. These caches will be much faster to use for gearing up your character on this server than standard loot drops. These caches can provide everything you need for your characters (such as consumables, gear, and even materials for selecting perks on artifacts.)
  
• Artifacts Unlimited - On this server, you are able to equip as many artifacts as you would like. We don’t know exactly how powerful these can become, but we want to allow you to experiment in some new ways and try some new gameplay combinations that even we haven’t seen before.
  
• Death Status Effects - A new status effect will be present on your character when created on this server for tracking your Unfallen or Fallen state, and this is our attempt at a different kind of hardcore experience. Characters who have not died will be considered ‘Unfallen’ and characters who have died will be considered ‘Fallen’. Instead of a traditional hardcore model, where your character is simply deleted on death, this status effect will stack up, granting 25 bonus attributes per stack. However, some challenges can only be completed in an Unfallen state. Group up with others to tackle these objectives and remain Unfallen, but don’t be afraid to keep going if you do Fall, you’ll be getting stronger and stronger.
  
• War has its own unique status effect. This status effect will provide a higher potential stacking on attributes after death (as well as a damage bonus), but it also reduces your armor and absorptions while active (this is intended to help balance out some of the potential defensive power artifacts can provide). Since this is a time limited server, territory control is not the primary focus, so we wanted to give people an opportunity to experience the mode in a different way. Honestly, we’re hoping you will all go out into the field and bonk each other over the head with foam bats and cardboard tubes for a weekend.
  
• Earnable Rewards - You will be able to earn new rewards for your character by completing challenges in the Season Journey on this server. These new earnable rewards are Raw Orichalcite Stone which allows you to craft any artifact you want (out of all the artifacts you do not currently own), and Runewood Resin which allows you to craft any T3 trophy you want. There will also be new cosmetics and titles to earn throughout this experience. These rewards will not be claimable on your seasonal character and must be claimed on one of your primary characters.
  
• Important extra note about the Hardcore server: As the focus of this server is push the limit of characters to the max, including using full sets of artifacts in endgame content such as the Gorgon raid, players will be required to have the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion to participate.
  

[h3]Expeditions Unleashed[/h3]

With the release of Expeditions Unleashed, we added a dynamic health scaling system for these encounters which will scale up and down the health of creatures and bosses in the encounter based on the number of players in the encounter area. This system has both a minimum and maximum boundary to the scaling and a per player increment. Our intention with this system is that more players should always be a benefit, but except in critically large player numbers, fight duration should be longer and more consistent than it was in past boss events.

With our initial release we set our boundaries to fairly conservative numbers to ensure the system would not have a negative impact to server health due to the longer fights. After reviewing the data from live servers and player sentiment, we’ve seen a positive impact in fight duration within our boundaries but we are seeing significantly higher numbers of players than our upper limit and as a result, the effects of the system were not as impactful as we’d like versus very large numbers of players (ie greater than 40).

With this update we decided to increase that upper boundary to accommodate larger groups of players. We are making this change cautiously to avoid strain on the servers and, depending on the outcome, we may revisit these settings again in the future.


[h3]Combat & Game Modes[/h3]

• Increased the bow's damage by 1.86% and musket by 1.68% in PvP.
  
• Upheaval - Reduced attack damage from 200% to 180% and reduced tactician upgrade CDR from 25% to 20%.
  
• Vampire's Vestments - Increased lifesteal amount from 10% to 17%.
  
• Lich Gloves - Increased empower (6% to 10%) and reduced cooldown (5s to 3s).
  
• Updated the Attuned Leather Pants and Old Crown to grant 11 attributes instead of 10.
  
• Vital Synergy - Reduced values for the stamina regen and healing bonus from 20% to 15%.
  
• Fixed an issue where target dummies could become 'immune' and no longer generate damage numbers.
  
• OPR - Buildable items are no longer allowed to be placed at the teleport locations through Gates and Barriers.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vital Synergy was reducing the power of the relentless artifact perk.
  
• Fixed an issue where Arenas didn't have the updated PvP damage values for Blunderbuss and Fire Staff.
  
• Fixed an issue where the hit boxes for mounts may not have been in the correct locations.
  
• Fixed an issue where rending stacks didn't have a cooldown allowing repeated activations per hit.
  

[h3]AI/Expeditions[/h3]

• Fixed an issue that allows players to climb onto Green keepers boulder attack, which would cause incorrect poison pool and boulder spawning.
  
• Fixed an issue where some of the Shielded Pistoleer in the world couldn’t be damaged or killed.
  
• Fixed an issue where Hive of the Gorgons sometimes couldn't be entered remotely.
  

[h3]General[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where players were experiencing instability and crashes on PlayStation.
  
• Fixed an issue where PC players with the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion would see news to purchase it when logging into the game.
  
• Fixed an issue where auto-running after any melee attack and trying to perform a vault or mantle would fail.
  
• Fixed an issue where the character wouldn’t appear on the Character Select screen.
  
• Fixed some issues with the new rotational modes timers in the Activity Finder screen.
  
• Fixed an issue with the bottom-right queue status banner not being present when queuing for CTF.
  

[h3]World[/h3]

• Fixed an issue with the Sandwurm encounter that could cause players colliding with the Sandwurm to fall through the world or get stuck in geometry. The Sandwurm now has impassable collision and abilities that normally allow the player to pass through an enemy will not be able to pass through the Sandwurm.
  
• Fixed an issue where players might push the Sandwurm off of its intended position in the arena and negatively affect subsequent spawn locations and how the Sandwurm's abilities function.
  
• Adjusted spawn scaling bounds in Monarchs Bluff to address boar exploit.
  
• Fixed Wit's Quest pin for killing Monstrous Polyphemus directing players to the general POI rather than the Elite POI.
  

Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.

Greetings, Adventurers!

New month, new gear. The store has been updated with a fresh lineup of items to help you stand out and strike hard in style across Aeternum. Whether you’re exploring the wilds or entering the fray, these new arrivals bring flair—and just a little fear—to your loadout.

STORE ITEMS
Harness the spirit of the fox with the new Kitsune Anchor Bundle, now available in the in-game store. Inspired by myth and built for battle, this bundle combines sleek, ceremonial design with sharp, supernatural edge. Whether you’re leading the charge with a gleaming Greatsword or supporting allies with a staff blessed by ancient energy, this set makes every moment feel legendary.

This Bundle Includes:

• Kitsune Apparel Skin – Graceful yet battle-ready, this fox-masked ensemble channels both tradition and ferocity. Every detail—from the flowing silks to the stylized armor plating—was crafted to honor the Kitsune’s cunning and strength.
  
• Kitsune Greatsword Skin – A sweeping blade adorned in red and white, echoing the spirit’s duality of beauty and power. Elegant in motion, deadly in purpose.
  
• Kitsune Life Staff Skin – A ceremonial staff etched with mythic markings. Said to carry the blessing of ancient guardians, it empowers your healing with presence alone.
  

This bundle won’t stay hidden in the shadows for long. Visit the in-game store and let the Kitsune guide your next transformation.

We’ll see you in Aeternum.