New World continues to be the little MMO that could–or, at the very least, the MMO that won’t give up. Despite its brief history of bugs, glitches, and shattered economies, the game’s development team is unwilling to throw in the towel, implementing patch after patch to fix the player experience. Earlier this month, the team introduced changes to New World‘s public testing realm for fans to test before the next huge patch. One such significant change to endgame combat–Expedition Mutators–seems to be a dev favorite. These will affect special enemies in an exhibition, giving them unique traits to up the difficulty and complexity of a fight.
In an interview with PCGamesN, world experience lead Mike Willette expanded on what this means for the game and its player base.
“There are a ton of different MMOs, roguelikes, and action-adventure games that inspired our first steps in developing Mutators. We wanted ways to challenge players and give them awesome rewards. We developed layers of challenges through the many afflictions, family types, and abilities offered in the game. Each one needs to be dealt with differently, requires better gear and teamwork, and gives better rewards,” he said.
“We are continually looking for ways to add meaningful content and variety to the game. Mutators [are] just the beginning. They challenge players to try different playstyles, gear, and team compositions in order to obtain new resources and gear to grow in power. Expect to see more Expeditions and Mutators in the future.”
Willette also mentioned that the community had reacted well to the Mutated Expedition, and was impressed by how quickly some coordinated groups managed to destroy bosses. As with many parts of New World, the mode is still dealing with bugs that the development team is working to fix.
New World is currently available for the PC. The game’s developers revealed some new gameplay changes in an hour and a half-long video posted in December 2021.
