The news that New World will be shutting down on January 31, 2027, came as a shock, although I was also not surprised by the decision. New World has had a very turbulent history, seeing incredible early success, followed by a major drop-off due to various poor decisions made by Amazon Game Studios and the publisher seemingly giving up on the game.
Even today, New World still sits with the 11th highest concurrent player count in Steam’s history, peaking at 913,634 at launch, only recently dropping out of the top 10 following the release of Monster Hunter Wilds last year, which now sits in 5th place with 1,384,608 concurrent players.
While 913,634 concurrent players is incredibly impressive, its more recent player count gives a good indicator as to why the plug is being pulled. As I write this post, New World: Aeternum has 1,080 players currently exploring the supernatural island.
Unfortunately, New World was unfinished when the game launched in September 2021. With repetitive content, many game-breaking issues, and no meaningful end-game, within one month, New World dropped to an average of 359.960 players, and by its first anniversary, fell to just 25,912.
Players now have just over one year to hop into New World before it is taken offline forever on January 31, 2027, but the game has now been delisted from Steam and consoles. As the clock counts down closer to the world of Aeternum vanishing for good, many players are upset that Amazon Game Studios isn’t either turning the game into a solo offline experience or giving players the option to host their own private servers.
One of these is Facepunch Studios COO Alistair McFarlane, the studio and creators of Garry’s Mod and Rust. The potential purchase offer started after Rust developer Errn took to X to let her followers know that she “tried to get Ali to buy NW for me but he told me to fuck off :(“
McFarlane then tagged Amazon Game Studios with a very informal offer of $25 million for ownership of the game and IP, claiming that it is his “final offer,” also going to state that “Games should never die,” we agree Ali.
McFarlane spoke to PC Gamer following this, telling them that “We’re opening a publishing arm of the business quite soon and we’re always looking for new opportunities and we are open to all avenues,” going on to double down on his stance that “Games shouldn’t die. Garry’s Mod turns 20 this year, and Rust just recently turned 12, with the latter thriving still. We don’t like to kill games off.”
