Last month, we introduced Expeditions: five-player instanced dungeons that will take players to the darkest corners of Aeternum. There, your party will face dire threats, learn more about the source of Corruption, expose the Angry Earth’s ulterior motives, reveal the deeper menace behind the Lost, and delve into the secrets of the ancient Guardians. Players can expect challenging battles which require skill and team coordination to complete. With the release of the Amrine Excavation and the Garden of Genesis, we wanted to share our vision for Expeditions in New World and the lore behind both of these experiences.
Our Vision
Our vision for Expeditions can be characterized by three main pillars:
Attainable Social Experience
Expeditions require a group of three to five players for completion, and we are actively balancing Expeditions against five players of the recommended level. We want players to form groups to take part in a cooperative piece of content, where they will need to use teamwork to overcome challenges, solve puzzles, and battle monstrous bosses.
New PvE Experience
The mechanics, bosses, and special loot unique to Expeditions will have value on their own and provide a change of pace from the other activities you can experience in the open world.
Unique and Engaging
Each Expedition will tell it’s own story and be a unique experience. We want to reward players putting in effort and taking part in each Expedition with pieces of loot and gear unique to that experience to incentivize exploring and conquering the various Expeditions spread throughout Aeternum. Instead of just increasing the enemy difficulty in successive Expeditions, the mechanics and puzzles are going to vary. For example, AI sets for bosses and mini-bosses will differ, and loot tables will be unique for each Expedition.
Amrine Excavation
The Amrine Excavation is a dig site just west of Amrine temple, where famed archeologist Simon Grey and his team have been missing for some time. It’s up to players to venture into the depths of this troubled dig site to uncover their fate and discover what happened with the Ancient technology they unearthed.
With a level 25 requirement, the Amrine Excavation is meant to be an introductory experience to Expeditions. Players will find that the mechanics of the puzzles difficulty and AI are scaled accordingly.
Garden of Genesis
In Edengrove, Survivalist Ellwood has discovered a garden where the Angry Earth are born. Like the rest of Edengrove, the garden has been infected with a mysterious Blight. If allowed to spread, the Blight will continue leech out of the Garden and threaten the inhabitants of Aeternum. Players must face the Garden’s protectors in order to penetrate to the nursery’s primordial heart, purge the Blight, and begin the Garden’s restoration.
As an an end-game Expedition intended for level 60 players, the Garden of Genesis will serve as a more challenging experience. With these higher level Expeditions, players can expect to solve different types of puzzles, fight varying AI, and more have even more challenging experiences.
Looking Ahead
We’re excited to have released the Amrine Excavation and Garden of Genesis Expeditions in the Alpha! Data from the Alpha test as well as the feedback from the testers themselves will be studied closely and tuning will be done to the systems as we introduce more Expeditions to New World. As we continue development, we’ll keep you updated on our social channels and website with future content.