All PvE and PvP game modes in New World explained

As a new MMORPG, New World aims to establish itself on a market that is highly contested by time-tested giants and innovative newcomers alike. To draw a healthy playerbase at launch and grow it down the line, the MMORPG from Amazon Game Studios needs to find ways to engage an audience with diverse tastes and gameplay preferences. To that end, New World features a number of different PvE and PvP activities. While it only has four game modes to offer at launch, they are all distinct and fully fleshed out, offering enough variety for newcomers to sink their teeth into.

Expeditions – PvE

Expeditions are New World’s take on classic MMO dungeons. These instanced multi-level missions have you and your team of up to five players delving deep into Corrupted locations around Aeternum. There are six unique Expeditions in New World at launch, and each one features unique enemies, bosses, and challenges, as well as unique loot to find. While still procedurally generated, Expeditions are the most story-oriented type of activity in New World, as they involve exploring the past of Aeternum and unraveling what went wrong in the island’s blighted past.

Invasion – PvE

The Invasion game mode in New World is a sort of raid-meets-base-defense PvE activity. A group of 50 players is tasked with defending their outpost from waves of successively larger and stronger hordes of Corrupted monsters. There are barricades to repair and artillery to operate, and all in all, this mode is very action-packed. Invasions offer a lot of great item rewards, but they are also one of the hardest New World activities to beat. Very few players have seen the final wave of an Invasion, and fewer still have survived it.

Outpost Rush – PvPvE

Outpost Rush is the most involved and tactical game mode in New World. This endgame activity has two teams of 20 players battling over a shared portion of the map, where they can roam freely, collect resources, craft defenses, summon creatures, and even defeat a powerful map boss to gain or a persistent team-wide buff — yes, like in a MOBA. Each team scores points for slaying enemy players and controlling objective points on the map, and the first team to reach 1,000 points wins.

War – PvP

The largest PvP game mode in New World, War has two teams of 50 players engage in full-blown warfare across a contested territory on Aeternum’s map. Wars are highly organized activities that involve both groups clashing at an agreed-upon time, with the faction currently in control of the territory acting as the Defenders. To win, the Attacking faction has to breach and capture the Defenders’ Fort; conversely, if the Defenders manage to hold onto their Fort for a period of time, they win. Both sides can use siege machines.

Wars play into the ongoing metagame of New World, with each successful campaign granting the victorious faction control over a chunk of the map. Another faction can then destabilize their hold over that area by completing PvP Faction Missions there, at which point another War may take place.