It's been a long road for Amazon's latest game, New World, since the MMO's original announcement at TwitchCon all the way back in 2016. Since that time, New World would go on to suffer through four different delays even as other Amazon Game Studios joined on to help the core development team make it across the finish line. After all of the feedback, betas, and development time, New World is finally in the hands of players.

As an MMO, New World has a lot of information to share and mechanics to learn. One of the big changes from contemporaries like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft is the lack of a traditional class system, instead letting players to customize one based on weapon class and attribute points. Naturally, with all of these changes, players may be wondering how some of these systems work, which extends to the Factions system.

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In New World, players are presented with three very different factions that they can eventually join. The choice has some weight to it as the decision will alter certain aspects of the game, even if the three are pretty similar from a gameplay standpoint. Here's a bit more about the Factions, how to join, and what they impact in the game.

new world faction screen

How to Join

Factions can't be joined right from the start of the game. First players much be at least level 10 and have completed the main story quest called Commitment to the Cause.

For players who no longer want to be part of their Faction or want to experience things from a different side, New World does give an option for players to switch. However, the player will have to wait 120 days before switching and the strongest faction will not be an option. These safeguards are in place to preventing those from constantly switching over to the winning team and making things very unbalanced when battling in Aeternum.

Which Faction to Join

Once the prerequisites have been met, players can select between three different factions, each with their own needs and motivations.

  • Marauders - This militaristic group seeks to establish a free nation built on strength.
  • Covenant - A fanatical order aiming to cleanse the land of heretics and defilers so that justice can be restored.
  • Syndicate - This secretive group values intellect and wants to usher in a new age of enlightenment through the discovery of forbidden knowledge.

Joining a particular faction also changes which Companies (guids) are available to join as well. Undertaking on faction specific missions awards players with XP, Coin, territory influence, and Faction Tokens which can be spent on Faction-specific gear. Each Faction has their own style and gear appearance, helping their players stand out from the others.

new world combat beta

New Faction Gameplay

After joining a faction, the game's PvP content becomes available. Players can toggle on their PvP switcxh and fight other PvP flagged players if they so desire. However, the big draw with Factions is that the group that holds the most territory, the stronger its members become. This translates to certain advantages in activities like crafting or earning more loot from defeating enemies.

In order to acquire new territory, players need to first undermine the group in charge by taking on Faction Missions which include both PvE tasks or PvP combat. Once Faction Influence reaches a certain point, the territory is thrown into conflict, which then opens the area to massive 50v50 warfare against rival factions. A date and time is selected for combat, as players fight over control of the Territory Fort.

Thankfully, Amazon did announce an underdog systems to prevent the lesser factions from being overwhelmed when one faction controls most of the land.

New World is now available on PC.

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Source: New World Wiki