Greetings, Adventurers!
Season of the Guardian downtime will begin for all regions at 5AM PT (12PM UTC) on April 2. Expected downtime is 2 hours. Challenge the Winter Rune Forge, acquire new Artifacts, and experience the fully updated main story quest. This season also includes Mounts in Outpost Rush, native controller support, and Cooking Trade Skill revisions. Here’s a brief overview for you to learn more about the key additions. Check out our full breakdown of the release notes for more information on all things Season of the Guardian.
NEW SEASONAL TRIAL: WINTER RUNE FORGE
Join up to 10 max-level players in a bone-chilling gauntlet of increasingly difficult enemies. This Seasonal Trial requires teamwork to overcome Rune puzzles, slay an Icey Construct, and fell an Ancient Ice Guardian for unique rewards.
NEW ARTIFACTS
Eight brand-new artifacts have been added to the game to redefine your playstyle, each featuring its own quest line for upgrades.
Three new weapons: be nimble and take advantage of battle with Sin, spin-to-win with Tempest Fury, or be toxic with poison heavy attacks with Venom.
Sin - Hatchet
- Corruption: Debuffs last 25% longer. (Works on both weapons.)
- Defile: Deal 2% more damage per debuff (max 5)
Venom - Spear
- Poison Tipped: Heavy melee attacks with either weapon cause poison dealing 20% weapon damage for 5s.
Tempest Fury - Great Axe
- Momentum: Successful attacks gain 3% movement speed for 3s. (Works on both weapons and stacks up to 10 times.)
- Endless Spin: Whirlwind no longer needs to hit targets to continue spins, and can spin up to 12 times.
Five new armor pieces: reduce max cooldowns and hit harder with Nature's Wrath, Ironheart, Gilli's Gravity Gauntlets, and the Creed Boots or defy death with the new Phoenix amulet.
Nature’s Wrath - Medium Chestwear
- Nature’s Blessing: Empower expires instantly but you deal 20% more damage.
Gilli’s Gravity Gauntlets - Heavy Glove
- Charged: Whenever you take damage, gain a charge that increases the damage of your next attack by 3%. (Max 10 charges.)
Ironheart - Heavy Legwear
- Steady Foundation: When not in Heavy loadout, gain 20% more Max Health.
Creed Boots - Light Footwear
- Ambush: Deal 15% more damage and a 25% increased critical hit chance as long as you haven’t hit the target within 20s.
Phoenix - Amulet
In our PTR feedback blog, we detailed changes that would follow Season 5. Thanks to the additional development time we were able to implement them sooner:
- When you receive lethal damage, avoid death and regain 100% of your max health. Then become inflicted with Vengeance, reducing healing by 200% and and take damage equal to 20% of your max health every second until you die or get a kill. (180s cooldown).
UPGRADED COMBAT & ANIMATION SYSTEM
New World’s combat and animation system has been overhauled for enhanced performance in high-traffic areas with many players, such as Wars and Outpost Rush. This new system will also make it easier to make combat adjustments in future updates. We've done our best to maintain or improve the feel of the game with this change-over, but would certainly appreciate feedback on anything that doesn't feel right after the patch.
THE OUTPOST RUSH CAVALRY
Mounts are now available in Outpost Rush! Players who have purchased the expansion and have unlocked mounts will be able to bring their steed into battle within this 20v20 game mode. Now ride like the wind to defend your team’s forts!
MAIN STORY QUESTLINE REVISIONS COMPLETE
The entire New World main story questline is now fully updated from end to end, based on player feedback. Improvements have been made across the board to the story campaign, including the new player starting area. Experience fresh narratives, more quest variety, and a few new surprises as you make your way through an epic story and its nail-biting conclusion. Now is the perfect time to start a new character!
NATIVE CONTROLLER SUPPORT
Controller support is coming to New World! Choose from two pre-set controller layouts to enhance your New World experience. As part of optimizing New World for controller play, we've introduced the following new features and settings.
Aim Assist
- Assists with aiming ranged attacks.
- Available only on a controller and exclusively against AI enemies (PvP aim assist will be reevaluated for future seasons).
Target Friction
- Reduces reticle speed when hovering over a valid target.
- Available only on a controller.
Enemy Target Lock
- Enables you to lock the camera onto an AI enemy (PvP target lock will be reevaluated for future seasons).
- Supported by both controller (move the right stick to switch between multiple targets) and Mouse and Keyboard (Middle Mouse Button and Mouse Wheel Up/Down) input methods.
Freeform Movement
- Allows running in all directions, including towards the camera.
- Holding Block/Aim will revert to normal strafe navigation.
- Activating Target Lock will strafe around the locked target.
- Defaulted to "on" only while using a controller input device.
- In addition, backwards movement has been sped up in normal strafe navigation.
Use Camera Direction for Melee Attacks:
- When off, allows melee attacks and blocking in the direction of your input/character facing instead of camera facing.
- Defaults to "off" only with while using a Mouse and Keyboard input devices.
Improved Accessibility
- New radial menu for quick access to commonly used functions like emotes, commands, and camping.
- New Shift modifiers for quick access to all combat abilities.
- UI Help Bars and shortcut buttons provide an improved user experience while navigating the UI with a controller.
NEW SEASON PASS
Season of the Guardian introduces a new Season Journey, new Activity Card, new Challenges, and new rewards including cosmetics and consumables.
COOKING AND OTHER TRADE SKILL CHANGES
Here’s what’s cooking in the latest Trade Skill changes: ingredient updates, revamped Cooking progression, Legendary Fish recipe tweaks, the removal of split attribute food, and more.
Thanks for your support! We’ll see you in Aeternum.
