New World: Aeternum, the latest expansion/do-over for Amazon's middling MMO New World, is having an open beta on 13th September ahead of its full PC and console release in October.

Aeternum, if you're unfamiliar, emerged back in June, amid some confused messaging that didn't entirely make it clear exactly what it was. And, truthfully, Amazon's marketing remains as baffling as ever. The gist, though, is that this is the same MMORPG released back in 2021, albeit with new features and a bit of finessing ahead of its debut on Xbox Series X/S and PS5.

It's got a pacier story (told through in-game cinematics and pre-rendered cut-scenes), combat improvements, cross-platform play, enhanced controller support, and more - while still retaining its other MMO bits like classes, crafting, and questing. Then there's New World's first-ever large-scale PvP zone, a new 10-player raid, end-game solo trials, and other additions.

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UPDATE 20/8/24: Well, there you go. Following last week's Deadline report, Amazon has officially unveiled Secret Level, a new "adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the most beloved video games".

It's a 15-episode series from the creators of Love, Death & Robots, and it'll feature stories inspired by Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40,000, and a variety of PlayStation Studios games.

And if that takes your fancy, you'll be wanting to circle 10th December on your calendar - which is when the series arrives on Prime Video - then check out its teaser trailer below.

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Season 2 of Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World has been airing weekly since early July, but the show’s broadcast has come to an abrupt pause as quality concerns arise.

Episode 5 of Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World Season 2 has been delayed indefinitely to maintain a high quality of production. In its place, episodes from the first season of the show will be broadcast to fill the show’s slot in the Summer 2024 anime season. This news was announced in a statement from the show’s production committee, along with more details regarding the decision.

“We have decided to postpone the broadcast and streaming of Episode 5 and onward in order to maintain the quality of the main story,” The statement reads. “The entire staff will make every effort to meet the expectations of those who have been looking forward to the work.”

Series creator Kei Sazane also chimed in on the decision to pause the broadcast schedule for Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World, noting that they’d heard feedback from fans that the animation quality hadn’t been up to par. 

“Some people voiced their concerns that the quality of the visuals in some parts of the animation was questionable. The production committee and the production studio took these concerns seriously, and that is how this decision came to be,” Sazane wrote.

While it might be disappointing to fans that they’ll have to wait for more of the anime, ultimately this is a good thing. It means that instead of getting an anime adaption that fans will despise for years, what we ultimately receive will be much closer to what fans initially expected.

If you’re looking to see and judge the animation yourself, you can still stream the first four episodes of Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World Season 2 on Crunchyroll now.

Harrison Ford, the legendary actor who has been in big franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, is set to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in February as President Thaddeus Ross, via Captain America: Brave New World. And he’s already gotten started with expressing his bemusement about the role.

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UPDATE 11.50pm UK: Tonight's Summer Game Fest show has confirmed New World: Aeternum, which will launch on 15th October and bring Amazon's MMO to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S for the first time.

Also launching on PC, this will be an updated version of New World and its previous Rise of the Angry Earth expansion, plus the game's first large-scale PVP zone, a raid for 10 players, endgame solo trials, an improved levelling experience and more.

PC owners with Rise of the Angry Earth will get the Aeternum version of New World as a free upgrade.

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AFinal Fantasy XIV concluded a massive saga when Endwalker released at the tail end of 2021, and has spent the patches since planting seeds about where it’s headed next. Dawntrail, the long-running MMO’s fifth expansion, is the product of those seeds, and it’s taking players to Tural, a Mesoamerican-inspired land…

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Just after he worked on the first Metal Gear, writer and director Hideo Kojima put out a cyberpunk adventure game called Snatcher. Heavily inspired by movies like Blade Runner and The Terminator, Snatcher never made a big splash outside of Japan — mostly because its English version hasn't been ported to modern videogame platforms — but its influence is felt in experimental, tech focused entries to the science fiction adventure game genre like Eliza, Orwell, République, and, notably, today's launch of Cyber Manhunt 2: New World.

While we’re still waiting for the next great new MMORPG to take the world by storm like World of Warcraft did years ago, there are still plenty of great active ones to choose from. These are the 10 most played MMORPGs on PC in 2024, ranked by their peak concurrent players.

Editor’s Note: Data sources used for this list include MMO Population, activeplayer.io, PlayerAuctions, and MMOStats. Data for every title except for RuneScape is not provided by the devs, but by Steam or some other service. That data excludes any players that play on official clients. Still, we included as accurate predictions as we could to make the ranking as fair as possible.