[5][6] Set in the mid-seventeenth century, players colonize the lost fantasy land of Aeternum, modeled after the Americas, where everyone who travels to it becomes immortal.

[8][9] The game also offers microtransactions in the form of skins along with a limited selection of both decorative and gameplay-impacting functional items for use within the player housing system.

[11] A television adaptation, "New World: The Once and Future King", was released on December 10, 2024 as an episode of Secret Level, starring the voices of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Pacey, Gabriel Luna, Arazou, Dana Haqjoo, and Carlo Rota.

The players may form groups of up to five members, join one of three factions (Marauders, Syndicate, or Covenant), gather raw materials (wood, stone, animal skins etc.)

from resource nodes, craft items, gain control over settlements, quest, explore the world, or fight other players or monsters.

The player may purchase personal housing and erect furnishings to achieve aesthetic and utility bonuses, as well as obtain a means for fast traveling to the settlement site.

The following day, it was reported that many high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards manufactured by EVGA were bricked while running the game.

[25][26][27] On August 4, 2021, it was announced that the game would be further delayed to September 28, 2021, to allow for additional development based on beta testing feedback.

[32] Amazon responded to this problem by introducing additional servers in all regions within two days of the game's release and explaining that they were undergoing tests to increase the cap from 2000.

This assisted in alleviating the worst of the queue times, but players continued to express disapproval as PC Gamer described the problem as "far from solved".

One month later Amazon decided to disable the family sharing functionality due to an "increase of bots, gold sellers, and ban evaders".

On the other hand, Amazon stated that "for players who utilize family sharing for a valid reason, we will update this post with instructions for assistance."

[46] The episode, "New World: The Once and Future King", released December 10, 2024, would be written by J. T. Petty and Philip Gelatt, directed by Maxime Luère, Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, and Rémi Kozyra, and starring the voices of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Pacey, Gabriel Luna, Arazou, Dana Haqjoo, and Carlo Rota .