New World will soon get a new weapon and the conclusion of the story of Isabella, according to Amazon Game Studios.
In a statement, Amazon has explained the new additions to the New World Public Test Realm (PTR) in March. The big one is the addition of the blunderbuss. A ranged weapon, it promises “high mobility coupled with potent close-to-mid range damage”.
That damage will be scaled based on the player’s strength and intelligence which means it’s well suited for “bruiser or age builds”. It’s the first weapon in the game to offer this connection.
To complement the weapon, two weapon mastery trees will be available with each supporting a distinct playstyle. The Containment tree focuses on “closing the gap and unloading hot lead into your enemy’s face”. While the Chaos tree is all about “keeping your distance and bombarding areas with explosive [area of effect] damage”.
The gun also gets its own legendary weapon quest series. Once players reach level 60 and the maximum blunderbuss skill level, they can go to Wang Tang Chi in Ebonscale Reach to begin the quest line.
The update also continues the main storyline with the pursuit of Isabella back to Shattered Mountain. The Tempest’s Heart quest is an endgame expedition for five players with a recommended character level of 60 and gear score of 550 or higher.
Other tweaks include “new encounters in the wild” and “impactful changes across a variant of weapons”. There will also be a “huge swath of bug fixes”.
The PTR update has not been given a date yet but it’s expected “soon”. It will go live in the main game “eventually”.
In other gaming news, EA has removed all Russian clubs from its FIFA and NHL titles. The change is in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Also, Lost Ark is getting its first major content update with new quests and raids this month.